Giving wings to enterprising ideas, natural gas transmission company Gas (India) Ltd (GAIL) has launched a start-up initiative ‘Pankh’ to identify and promote innovative ventures and nurture the spirit of entrepreneurship, a release by the company said.

To promote the initiative, GAIL has created a corpus of Rs 50 crore for investing in start-ups and would also provide mentoring to them in core areas of the company, i.e., natural gas and its derivatives.

“The creation of the corpus fund under ‘Pankh’ was only a small beginning to promote innovative ideas and this could be reviewed and improved, depending upon the response of entrepreneurs and the concepts received under the initiative,” said GAIL Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) B C Tripathi.

“This would help start-ups to realise their full potential at the earliest. There is a need to look at the initiative of start-ups in the context of the economy cycle which is otherwise reversing and the need of the hour is innovation,” he added.

GAIL (India) Limited start-up portal – GAIL Pankh was launched by Mr. B C Tripathi, CMD, GAIL. pic.twitter.com/trGmujh0Yv

— GAIL (India) Limited (@gailindia) July 25, 2017

Apart from the corpus for start-up investments, GAIL has also launched a start-up web portal through which potential candidates can submit their proposals to GAIL. The Portal can be accessed through the company’s website and will remain open till August 16, 2017.