Nirmala Sitharaman offers Rs183K for Mangaluru Start-up Incubator Centre

A step towards Start-up incubation is taken up by Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Friday, that she will contribute Rs183K to set up an incubation centre in Mangaluru, from her Member of Parliament Local Area Development fund.

The Dakshina Kannada district administration and the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) are planning to set up the centre to encourage a start-up ecosystem in Mangaluru.

Demand for incubation centre for start-ups felt by start-ups in the city as per the statements from, Jeevan Saldanha, President, KCCI.

The KCCI and the district administration have identified a 6,000 sqft area at Mallikatta area here. The proposed centre will have around 70 seats and will accommodate 15-20 start-ups depending upon the number of people employed, Saldanha said as per reports from Business Line.

More than 150 IT and IT-enabled services firms are situated in and around Mangaluru.

Saldanha said the incubation centre will provide start-ups with an IT ecosystem with mentoring from Nasscom. The KCCI has already held discussions with Nasscom in this regard, he said.

Sitharaman stated on her visit to Mangaluru on Friday, that with the help of NITI Ayog, she has taken initiatives to set up innovation hubs at the NIT Karnataka in Mangaluru and at Nitte Mahalinga Adyanthaya Memorial Institute of Technology in Udupi district.