Entrepreneurial Development as a compulsory subject .

I was recently going through an article by Josh Lerner and William Sahlman titled "Reviving Entrepreneurship" and I was amazed to see how these men cogitate of their country and its tradition of producing great entrepreneurs. They entitle the whole glory, growth and stability of their nation to the entrepreneurs that America has produced over the period of time. This made me to think over the current economic position of our state with respect to the number of entrepreneurs operating in the state. To be fair our land has failed to produce good and quality entrepreneurs in quantity over the years. It is not that the people in the state lack talent, innovation, creativity, knowledge or ideas that are the basics for a person to be an entrepreneur. The basic problem here is that people don’t know how, when and where to channel their efforts, time and off course money.

There are a lot of institutions that have been set up by the government and lots of schemes to help and propel the budding entrepreneurs. Institutions like MSME and CII have helped many people start their business but still I feel that either people are not being made aware properly or they are not being inspired to start their ventures and turn their talent, ideas and dreams into reality. There can be many problems that are enshrouding the growth of entrepreneurship in the state but I have tried to highlight a few.

As I said earlier that people here don’t know how, when and where to channel their efforts, this to me is the basic reason that why we fail to produce entrepreneurs in a quantity. Young and budding entrepreneurs are not properly educated and lack knowledge about entrepreneurship. I am strongly of this opinion that if any nation has to survive in this competitive world its economic setup and stability is important. And for economic setup and stability the nation needs to have young and budding entrepreneurs to take the nation ahead. My suggestion to help the growth in quality and quantity of young entrepreneurs is to introduce a subject on "Entrepreneurial Development" in our colleges. This subject should be made compulsory to all like "Environmental Studies", because it not only environment that needs to be sustained but the growth of a state or a nation should also be sustained. If we fail to produce a good number of entrepreneurs in future then we are going to be what we are "consumers". And the point is till how more time can we Kashmiris be importers and consumers and why can't we be exporters and producers.

Age between 17 to 25 is crucial for the growth of any individual. It is during this period one starts to understand the complex world around and starts to make plans about the future. This is the age to groom, incite and polish these young minds and make them cognizant of the prevailing world situation. We all know what the current situation is, government jobs are like treasured diamonds, hard to find and jobs in private sector come with a certificate of "NO JOB SECURITY," this has made our young generation insecure and they feel perplexed about their future. Exactly this is the time to induce the concept of entrepreneurship in their minds and once this seed is sown then properly taken care with providing sunshine (opportunities), fertilizers (loans) and water (tax benefits and subsidies) it will grow into a tree that will bear fruits for years altogether. But in our case we expect fruits without sowing seeds. A course on "Entrepreneurial Development" will help these young people to infer why we need more entrepreneurs in today's world and why job givers are better than job seekers and more importantly how to be a one. This course will ignite their minds and propel out their ideas, creativity and innovation and help them turn their dreams into reality.

In this paper not only ways to start new ventures should be discussed but students shall be made aware of the various schemes, avenues, opportunities and the different institutions that the government has setup to help the new entrepreneurs' start their business. Apart from this government shall also start an aggressive approach for the various awareness programmes. The banks and various institutions formed to help these entrepreneurs should also facilitate these young men rather than creating more confusion and dissatisfaction. There may be many other causes and solutions but to me these are the basic ones.