Srinagar: Union minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said a change in the mindset and exploration of regional resources are key for the success of start-ups in Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing the valedictory function of the two-day National StartUp Conference RASE 2024 at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) here, Singh said the start-up movement in India has picked up in a big way in the last 10 years and the credit for this primarily goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who gave the “StartUp India, StandUp India” call from the ramparts of the Red Fort during his Independence-Day address.
At that time, the minister recalled that the number of start-ups in the country was just 350-400 and today, it has gone up to 1.5 lakh and India occupies the third spot globally in terms of the number of start-ups.
In the earlier years, the start-up movement somehow did not catch up with an equal pace in this part of the country, the Union minister of state for personnel said.
He said this was also due to the fact that in some states and Union territories like Jammu and Kashmir, a “government job or sarkari naukri” was the main source of livelihood for decades and that has conditioned the mindset of youngsters as well as their parents.
“It is, therefore, important to create awareness that rozgar does not mean only sarkari naukri and that some of the start-up avenues may be more lucrative compared to a salaried government job,” the minister said.
Emphasising the need to explore regional resources, he said the mindset somehow gets stuck up with information technology (IT) when one talks of start-ups, whereas in a region like Jammu and Kashmir, the agriculture sector should be the main area of operation for start-ups.
“A change in the mindset and exploration of regional resources are key to start-ups in Jammu and Kashmir,” Singh said.
Citing the example of the Aroma Mission, he said the Purple Revolution started from the small towns of Bhaderwah and Gulmarg, and is now being talked about all over the country.
“Nearly 5,000 youngsters have taken up lavender farming as agri start-ups and are making a handsome income,” Singh, a Lok Sabha member from Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur, said.
Encouraged by them, he said some youngsters working in the corporate sector have also quit their jobs and turned to lavender farming.
“The success of the Aroma Mission is vindicated from the fact that the example of Jammu and Kashmir is now being emulated by Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and some of the northeastern states,” Singh said.
As far as Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, he said it could be possible to explore the areas of agri start-ups in the floriculture sector as well, for which the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has started a floriculture mission.
Singh also referred to handicraft, horticulture and textile start-ups as rich domains of Jammu and Kashmir.
He said one of the important catalysts for the success of start-ups was a close integration between academia, research and industry, and for this, he called upon various research institutes and industrial agencies to come together on a single platform.
The minister spoke to the audience about the need for a fundamental shift in thinking to propel the country’s economy towards the goal of a “developed India” by 2047.
