Chhattisgarh has started adapting the best policy practices from the fastest growing entrepreneurial eco-systems, like in Singapore and the Silicon Valley, to accelerate entrepreneurial growth to provide a major push to the ‘Startup Chhattisgarh’ programme, officials informed.
It is now aggressively inviting new entrepreneurs, investors and startup leaders from across the globe to become part of the startup ecosystem.
The Government also has plans to establish state-of-the-art innovation/research infrastructure at the universities and colleges in emerging fields such as biotechnology and Internet of Things (IoT), Agriculture and Food Processing so that innovators can build new products.
It also has plans to establish district specific knowledge banks to bring all the entrepreneurial opportunities in food processing, manufacturing and value addition etc under one roof.
Notably, Chhattisgarh launched its first ever ‘Mission’ to aggressively promote Start-ups in the State with the launch of ‘Start-up Chhattisgarh’ at Shri Shankaracharya Institute of Professional Management & Technology in Raipur in November last year.
Chief Minister Raman Singh launched “Start-up Chhattisgarh” along with Industry Minister Amar Agrawal in the presence of Chhagan Lal Mundra, Chairman, of Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation (CSIDC) and Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand.
The Chief Minister in his address explained how he had to resort to innovations to attain the aspirations of citizens of the State.
Singh said that his Government is committed to make ‘Start-up Chhattisgarh’ a grand success in the State and would extend full support to develop the enabling eco-system for Start-ups in the State.
He said that innovation would be promoted in schools and colleges under ‘Atal Innovation Mission’.
After launch of Start-Up India by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January, 2016, States were to prepare their action plan and were asked to start implementing the same.
In line with the Startup India Action plan, the State Government launched ‘Start-up Chhattisgarh Action Plan 2016’ for promoting Start-ups in Chhattisgarh and announced that ‘boot camps’ would cover all 27 districts of the State.
A total of 3858 persons have shared their start-up ideas under ‘Start Up Chhattisgarh’ programme out of which 36 ideas were selected for setting up units which will be provided refund of all taxes deposited by them.
The State Government has provisioned Rs 3 crore in the budget of fiscal year 2017-18 for Start-up Chhattisgarh programme.
The ‘Start-up Chhattisgarh’ programme has been initiated to spread awareness regarding entrepreneurship and to educate and empower the aspiring entrepreneurs in setting up enterprise.
Under this programme, selected ideas will be provided conceptual financial, and technical support for entrepreneurial welfare.
Youngsters are showing keen interest in Start-up Chhattisgarh scheme by actively participating in the seminars cum boot camps being organised in 18 districts.
In Raipur Durg and Bilaspur districts, 20 boot camps have been organised in colleges, wherein more than 20 thousand youth, entrepreneurs and students participated.
The Chhattisgarh Government is setting up a ‘Centre of Excellence on Innovation and Technology in Education’ to manage the execution of Virtual Education Scheme with funding support from MEITY, Government of India.
Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS) has initiated the Virtual Education Scheme with funding support from MEITY, Government of India, officials informed.
The project envisages leveraging technology to improve student-learning outcomes, assisting teachers through ICT enabled classrooms, building teachers capacity using online and offline platforms for teacher training, creating and providing digital content for the entire education system and support the District-State administration with relevant, accurate and timely data to inform policy decisions.
The project will look at School Education, Higher Education, Technical Education and Vocational Education.
The Scheme offers to set up a learning management system which will provide content mapped with the state syllabus to be used by teachers and students. The project is coupled with ICT at schools scheme which has a focus on secondary and higher secondary schools.The Learning Management System will further be extended to colleges, vocational institutes and ITIs.
CHiPS is the nodal agency and prime mover for propelling IT growth & implementation of the IT & e-Governance projects in the State of Chhattisgarh.
The Chief Minister heads the High Powered Governing Council of CHiPS. It includes Minister for Finance & Commercial Taxes, Minister for Commerce & Industry, Minister for Education, Minister for Panchayat & Rural Development, Chief Secretary, eminent persons from IT industry and a representative from the Ministry of Information Technology in Government of India.
The Chhattisgarh government last year had decided to launch an “Online Learning Platform” (OLP) to enable imparting of ‘Virtual Education’ in the State .
The OLP– a web-based software application for learning management will be deployed at Chhattisgarh State Data Centre in Raipur.
The services from the Online Learning Platform are to be provided to Schools, ITIs and Common Service Centres (CSCs) and to the students studying in various schools and colleges in Chhattisgarh.
It may be recalled that the State government had also recently launched an online portal for enabling online admissions in more than 214 colleges including universities in Chhattisgarh.
Notably, the State Higher Education Department in collaboration with CHiPS has developed a software titled ‘Software Empowerment through Technology Utilization)’ (SETU) which would enable online admissions in colleges.
The Chhattisgarh government would also be setting up a Project Management Unit (PMU) for proper implementation of the ‘Mukhya Mantri Yuva Swavalamban Yojana’.
The project is a major initiative taken by Chhattisgarh government to improve placement rates of fresh college graduates of three and four year degree courses in IT and ITeS sectors, officials informed.
The program envisages providing training to students in such areas of aptitude that are required to successfully navigate the selection process of IT and BPM employers and secure placement. The training will be designed with a view to imparting in-demand skills and abilities in contemporary employment market.
The training will be delivered by leading trainers who will also make necessary arrangements for the employment opportunities for placing a minimum of 60% of the total students undergoing the training program.
The Chhattisgarh Government will be hiring highly qualified system integrators for making assessment besides providing training and ensuring placement of fresh IT and ITeS graduates under the “Mukhya Mantri Yuva Swavalamban Yojana”, officials informed.
The “Mukhya Mantri Yuva Swavalamban Yojana” project is a major initiative taken by Chhattisgarh government aimed to improve placement rates of fresh college graduates of three and four year degree courses in IT and ITeS sectors.
The program envisages providing training to students in such areas of aptitude that are required to successfully navigate the selection process of IT and BPM employers and secure placement. The training will be designed with a view on the in-demand skills and abilities in contemporary employment market.
The training will be delivered by leading trainers who will also make necessary arrangements for the employment opportunities for placing a minimum of 60% of the total students undergoing the training program.
Notably, Chhattisgarh has already established itself as a major educational hub with presence of premier institutions like NIT, IIM, NLU and AIIMS. It also, has many other world class educational institutions for professional programmes such as Engineering, MCA and MBA as well as in Humanities, Commerce and the Sciences, officials informed.
However, there is a gap between the number of students graduating and the number of students getting placed. There is a tangible gap between present state of aptitude and the required aptitude for getting selected in prestigious organisations, they informed.
Hence, there is a need to establish the platform which could increase the employment opportunities. It is an observed trend that most employers in IT and ITeS sector have rigorous training programmes that provide the necessary technical skills that are required to perform the jobs for which they hire. The focus, when these employers hire, is on assessing a range of abilities.
The general curriculum of our education system has been focussed on imparting technical skills. However, aptitude is an area which tends to get ignored and thus students from Chhattisgarh tend to lose out to fresh graduates from larger cities which offer better opportunities for schooling and more exposure, officials informed.
Therefore, imparting abilities training to help them prepare for the selection process in a short and concentrated capsule is expected to improve greatly the chances of the students of Chhattisgarh securing employment with some of the best employers in the IT/BPM space.
The training must will also be complemented with efforts to establish the credibility of Chhattisgarh in providing quality talent as well as to ensure that reputed organisations come to Chhattisgarh for recruitment. This may start the trend where students, corporates and government of Chhattisgarh are mutually benefitted, officials informed.
Source: The Pioneer
