Saurabh Gupta | 03 Jul, 2009
The Development Commissioner (MSME) has announced a scheme for providing support for entrepreneurial and managerial development of SMEs through Incubators, said a DC (MSME) official.

"The scheme provides early stage funding for nurturing business ideas (new/ ingenious technology, processes, products, procedures, etc.) which could be commercialized in a year. The level of funding is about Rs. 66.28 lakhs for 10 business ideas at the rate of 6.25 lakhs per idea and Rs. 3.78 for infrastructure support," the official told SME Times.

The main objective of the scheme is to promote emerging technological and knowledge-based innovative ventures that seek the nurturing of ideas from professionals beyond the traditional activities of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Such entrepreneurial ideas have to be fostered and developed in a supportive environment before they become attractive for venture capital. Hence the need arises for incubation centres to promote and support untapped creativity of individual innovators and to assist them to become technology-based entrepreneurs.

It also seeks to promote networking and forging of linkages with other constituents of the innovation chain for commercialization of their developments. This initiative is now being taken up by the Ministry of MSME – the nodal Ministry for the development of entrepreneurship and creation of self-employment and more employment avenues.

When asked about who can apply and how, he said, "Any technical/ management institutes, universities, etc. having established in-house support services and facilities with experienced/ devoted faculty who can nurture/ mentor innovative idea and are at near commercialization stage can apply for the scheme."

He also said that those organizations should summit the proposal in the prescribed application format to the DC-MSME, New Delhi.

It has been proposed that in each Business Incubator (BI), efforts will be made to reach the ratio of 4:1 between the incubated micro and small enterprises, respectively, i.e. efforts will be made to incubate eight micro enterprises and two small enterprises in each BI on an average in an ideal situation.

However, flexibility on this count would be permissible. There will also be flexibility in having more than one BI in the same host Institution, and where required, there may be less than 10 or more than 10 enterprises hosted in each BI.

For details of the guidelines of the scheme, application form for submission of proposals one can visit at the following link: http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/schemes/NMCPscheme.htm