Apitco to inculcate entrepreneurial skills among tribal youth

The Andhra Pradesh Industrial and Technical Consultancy Corporation (Apitco) has drawn up plans for implementation of Entrepreneur Development Programme (EDP) in East Godavari district to bring out entrepreneur skills among people in the agency area.

Apitco officials have identified 20 different areas where EDP skills can be put to better use.

These include palm fibre extraction, adda leaf-plate and cup-making, tamarind de-seeding, cake-making, cashew processing, honey collection, brick manufacturing, turmeric processing, forest products' collective marketing/collection, dairying, two-wheeler servicing, etc.

The officials will conduct the programme with the support of Tribal Finance Development Corporation (Tricor). Apitco resource persons will give training to 200 tribal youths in these trades and take steps for grounding 100 units in the current year.

The training will be given for 15 days at Rampachodavaram, the headquarters of the agency area in the district after completing the selection process.

"We will give training to the youth who have passed class V in book-keeping, financial management and technical knowledge in the respective field. We will also teach them how to prepare project reports, find raw materials, organisational behaviour etc," Apitco district project coordinator P Balaji said.

He added that they would also take steps for securing loans for the trainees through the Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana, Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Rajiv Yuva Shakti and other schemes.

He expressed the confidence that Apitco would produce 100 entrepreneurs in the current year.

The selection of entrepreneurs would be done by Mandal Mahila Samakyas (MMS).