With a view to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, an Ahmedabad-based mentor is all set for a mission called ‘Mentor-on-Road’ to encourage young entrepreneurs to contribute in a major national programme.
Jagat Shah (49), founder and chief mentor of Cluster Pulse, an economic development agency and global network, will travel almost 9,400 km and cover 27 cities across 18 Indian States as part of his mission.
Shah will begin his journey on Monday from Ahmedabad and will travel for 65 days at a go to mentor and counsel startups, rural enterprises and MSMEs across the country. He will spend two days in each city and meet members and office-bearers of local chambers and trade bodies apart from emerging entrepreneurs. In each location on the route, he will interact with 50 to 200 local industries, associations and institutions.
A report on challenges faced by rural enterprises, MSMEs and start-ups will be submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office on completion of the journey, says Shah, while talking to The Pioneer. According to him, ‘Mentor-on-Road’ is a journey to connect all the corners of the country. He will start his journey from the western heart of Ahmedabad to reach Kochi in the south, from where he will head to Kolkata in east, eventually concluding his trip back in Ahmedabad via north India.
First stop of his journey will be diamond city Surat and after spending couple of days he will proceed to Nasik, Pune, Belgaum, Panaji, Madurai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Vijayawada, Vizag, Raipur, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Jamshedpur, Patna, lucknow, Kanpur, Dahradun, Chandigarh, ludhiana, Jalandhar, Delhi, Jaipur, Indore and reach Ahmedabad back on July 7.
“Apart from promoting ‘Make in India’, I will also push other initiatives of the Prime Minister ‘Swachchh Abhiyan’, Smart India and ‘Digital India’ by connecting industry and academia. Inspiring youth to become self-employed will be the focus of the entire journey and in the process,” said Shah.
Shah added: “From each city a local mentor will join me for two days. later they will be trained for a year. These mentors will connect start-ups to global chains and supply chains in India.”