Incubation centre at HAU to push agribusiness startups

Tribune News Service

Hisar, December 14

Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) will establish NABARD Agribusiness Incubation Centre to provide guidance, technology and infrastructure to youth and entrepreneurs for startups in different areas of agriculture. Rs 11.75 crore has been sanctioned for the centre.

Prof KP Singh, Vice-Chancellor, HAU, said here today that employment generation in the rural areas was a major challenge because of lack of relevant skill in value addition in agriculture for those who wanted to shift to off-farm sector. “Many of them aspire to acquire new skill sets and gain hands-on experience on use of technology. These youth need support to emerge as confident and skilled entrepreneurs in agriculture and allied sectors,” he said.

The HAU had submitted a project proposal for the establishment of an agribusiness incubation centre with focus on innovations, skill building and entrepreneur development in agriculture and allied sectors with emphasis on quality assurance and safety parameters, certification, branding and marketing of different products.

This four-year project has been set up to develop university-entrepreneur and industry linkages, to provide platform for research and development in process or product development to improve the quality of their products, provide infrastructure and technical expertise to entrepreneurs in different areas of agriculture and allied disciplines along with assistance in commercialisation and to incubate startup companies in establishing business, through consultancy, trainings, business advisory services and handholding to a level of stability and success.

The Nodal Officer of NABARD project at HAU said that the incubation centre would also commercialise the available technologies and help the client to develop skill for establishing own unit, create jobs and build wealth to small and medium entrepreneurs resulting in economic development of the state. He said the centre would work as catalyst for developing an ecosystem conducive for growth of agripreneurship and foster a startup culture.