Kerala: Business Incubator focuses on agriculture industry

Kozhikode: National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NITC) is all set to assist the agrarian sector by promoting farm based industrial units in a big way through the Technology Business Incubator, on its campus. The move is in the wake of lack of innovative projects from the sector. In the first phase, 25 entrepreneurs will be given an entirely agrarian focused six-week training programme which will begin on December 18. The majority of the companies hatched out from TBI so far are IT-Techno based. 

The ‘Food Technology-Based Entrepreneurship Development Programme- 2017’ is being supported by Union ministry of science and technology.TBI manager M. Preethi said though there were many attempts in the past to cater to the agriculture sector to tap the industry, the result was not that much good. 

“This time we aim at giving a general orientation to those interested entrepreneurs which will help them to set up small-scale units”, she told DC. "Experts from all supporting branches like banking, industry, law, accounting and technology would lead the sessions."

With this programme, the participants will be equipped to identify an ideal project, study the feasibility of the project and the different processes of setting up the industry. The participants will have to pay a small amount of Rs 2,000 for the training programmes.

In its more than a decade-long existence, TBI at NITC has proved a success by hatching out as many as 40 units while 17 units are still in the incubation phase at the facility. The TBI products in IT sector generate a cumulative turnover of more than Rs 25 crore providing job opportunities to around 1,000 experts.