Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma attended the PRIME Entrepreneurship Awards with officials of MBMA, North East Small Finance Bank, SBI, entrepreneurs and artisans of Meghalaya on February 19.

Speaking on the occasion the Chief Minister lauded the efforts of MBMA.

“It feels great to see the sector that was left neglected for a long time being given the attention it requires to prosper," he said.

“I am happy to witness our artisans and entrepreneurs getting the opportunities and the much-needed handholding through the Ateliers Programme and the PRIME Meghalaya initiative,” he added.

CM Sangma announced that a corpus fund of Rs 125 crore will be constituted over the next 2 years as PRIME Fund to aid the efforts of the entrepreneurs of Meghalaya.

On the need to create value for products of Meghalaya, the CM said, "It is important to package, market the story and present the products of our entrepreneurs and artisans, so we can create value out of their products."

He believes that through the initiatives of the government, the entrepreneurship culture can spread to all different sectors to encourage the talented and enterprising people of Meghalaya.

He thanked the banks for their support and urged them to continue their support to the entrepreneurs of the State.

Further, the Chief Minister announced that the government will introduce the ‘Chief Minister's Music Award’ on a monthly basis to award musicians Meghalaya.

Dr D Vijay Kumar, CEO of MBMA stated that it is the venture of the Meghalaya Government through PRIME Meghalaya to make entrepreneurship a preferred career choice for young people through the creation of an ecosystem that enables easy availability of credit, technology, skilling, and mentoring support, and access to markets.

“Our Mission is to provide a systematic and targeted approach through a network of Prime Hubs that will be a one-stop-shop for the different segments of entrepreneurship in the State,” he said.

"The programme is also reaching out to entrepreneurs in rural areas," he added.