The National Entrepreneurship Awards (NEA), were instituted by the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship with the objective to catalyse the economic growth of India by motivating the youth to become entrepreneurs. The underlying reality was to create more job creators rather than job seekers. The vision was based on the insight, that the youth of India, have the ability to move mountains and take destiny into their own hands, provided given the right opportunity. It would make sense to channelize this positive energy into creating his own business and make it grow with others. To enable this dream, the NEA Awards was announced in 2016 to inculcate a sense of competitiveness in the youth below 40 years of age , who believed in themselves, to ensure that India surged forward, towards faster economic growth.
The Awards are in 3 categories, (A1, A2, A3) depending on the scale of investments and there has been a gradual increase in the popularity of the NEA Awards over the past three years, with significant increase in number of completed applications. This was possible on account of sustained mentoring and a concerted plan of action on the ground by MSDE and National and Regional partner institutes, including targeted meetings, workshops, customised gatherings like MSME meets, seminars, at alumni gatherings at various business schools. All these collectively done, saw the NEA Awards become a buzz word amongst the young entrepreneurs of the country.
The MSDE in Delhi also inculcated a sense of competition amongst the 12 partner institutes, so that the activities conducted by them in NEA 2019, are taken to a logical end, in terms of mobilisation of quality applications . As a result, the completed applications in all respects grew from 2379 to 4134 in 2019. This reflects a 73% increase in participation by individual entrepreneurs and heralds a new beginning for partnership and collaboration. This achievement is significant on account of synergy in ground level activities and social media undertaken to promote the awards.
The story of past awardees has helped in amplifying the relevance of the NEA Awards. The coming year will see the MSDE work with greater enthusiasm, as the upsurge in the number of dedicated participants has reflected in large number of completed applications.
Gopinath Menon, Media Advisor, MSDE.
