PUNE: Founding Trustee and Executive Vice President of Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) Lakshmi Venkatesan believes that the government has failed to create an ecosystem to create jobs in the last two decades leading to the current employment crises. She said that nearly two crore people in India search for a job every year and the question of how to create jobs still remains unanswered.
Venkatesan said that such an employment crises are being faced not only in India but across the globe and many countries are turning towards mentoring as a solution to this crises. “Mentoring entrepreneurs by training them, providing them with counselling and providing other support services will ensure that all other programmes of the government like Skill India, Start-Up India, Make in India and Digital India do not fail. Mentoring India is at the heart of these programmes,” she said.
Speaking about BYST at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) office, Venkatesan said that the organisation has been working towards enabling job creation since the day of its inception 25 years ago. “We are providing mentoring to rural entrepreneurs, who have then gone ahead and provided jobs to numerous people. In the last three years only, we are mentoring 1,000 entrepreneurs annually, who have further created 50,000 direct or indirect jobs every year,” she added.
Speaking about the programme, Venkatesan said, “BYST is leveraging financial institutions like banks through tie-ups to provide funds to entrepreneurs. We provide business advisors to mentor the entrepreneurs and also provide support services like counselling, training and workshops, recognitions and awards and networking. All our mentors come from the industry and take up this work on a voluntary basis. They mentor the entrepreneurs free-of-cost for a period of minimum two years.”
Venkatesan added that there is now a need for these mentors to percolate into the government sectors as well. “We have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) to train the trainers at ITIs to convert them into mentors. Likewise, we have signed an MoU with the Railways to train the officers concerned with procurements from SMEs as mentors. We also plan to train officials from the District Industries Commission as well as bankers at the branch level. We must make this happen in India so that we can create a robust job ecosystem,” she added.
Venkatesan said that the mentors are also provided with training and accreditation by BYST.
She said that 95 per cent of the entrepreneurs mentored under BYST have succeeded and many have won several national and international awards over the years. “Sadashiv Maskle, for example, has been selected among the top three candidates running for the Best International Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 award by Youth Business International (YBI). He started with an initial investment of Rs 2 lakh about 2 years ago and now has a turnover of Rs 30 lakh per annum and has created jobs for 200 persons. He deals in solar lighting and products in the rural areas of Maharashtra,” Venkatesan added.
