J&K startups impress PM Modi; tweets his Srinagar experience

21 June 2024

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SRINAGAR: Entrepreneurs from Jammu and Kashmir told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they also give guarantee like ‘Modi ki guarantee’ for their products, as the youth doing “pioneering work” in StartUps interacted with him during his two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir which concluded here on Friday.

Modi posted the video of the interaction on his X handle.

“Yesterday in Srinagar, I had the opportunity to meet talented youngsters of Jammu and Kashmir who are doing pioneering work in StartUps. Here are the highlights from the interaction,” Modi said in the post.

The interaction took place at SKICC on Thursday before the prime minister addressed the ‘Empowering Youth, Transforming J&K’ programme. A number of women entrepreneurs were among those who interacted with the PM.

A woman entrepreneur whose StartUp produces feed and feed supplements for livestock told the prime minister that she has 22 products in her portfolio.

The woman entrepreneur told Modi that her year-old StartUp has produced 500 tonnes of feed so far and earned Rs 1 crore.

When the prime minister asked the entrepreneur if she would prioritise her Phd, which she is pursuing, or the StartUp, she answered that she was inspired by him and would focus on both.

Another woman entrepreneur, Sheela Imran Bandh, a microbiologist from Kachkoot village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama, told the PM that the women of her village are very skilled and she uses their skills to create her handicraft products. She told him that 20 women artisans are working with her.

When the prime minister asked her about the marketing of her products, Bandh said she has an e-commerce website.

Modi asked her about microbiology, to which she said there is not much “influence” of microbiology in her village and she had to take the entrepreneurship route to give something back to the society.

Another entrepreneur said he started online by taking inspiration from Modi’s dream of Digital India. Making food products like jams and honey, the owner of the StartUp ‘Just Order’ told Modi that he sources the ingredients locally.

“We also give a guarantee like ‘Modi ki guarantee’ for our products. We offer a money-back guarantee,” the entrepreneur told the prime minister who was all smiles.

A StartUp dealing with lavender products told Modi that 2,500 farmers are associated with him and he was encouraged by the PM’s monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio programme when he touched about prospects of lavender farming.

Insha Qazi, a business management graduate from London, who has set up ‘Cheese Cottage’ homestay at Tangmarg near the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg in 2021, informed Modi that her endeavour is to have about 90 per cent women workers.

At another stall, a curious prime minister asked the owner of J-K’s first public e-bike sharing StartUp, how many bikes he had and at how many locations had they set up the bikes which are available on rent.

The company has completed 40,000 rides in just one year by having 100 bikes at 12 locations, Modi was told.

To the prime minister’s query that how far does a person ride the bike on an average, he said 13 kms.

Modi’s queries did not end there. He shot one more. “Do foreign tourists take the bike rides or are they local ones only?”

The entrepreneur said both types of tourists take their bikes on rent and the recent tourism boom in the valley has helped them a lot.

“Do you track your bikes digitally as well to see where the rider is going?” was another question from the PM.

In September 2021, during his 81st ‘Mann Ki Baat’ episode, the prime minister had hailed two entrepreneur brothers running a bio-fertiliser manufacturing unit in Pulwama district, and their stall was the last one he visited during the interaction.

Modi asked them whether their mention in ‘Mann Ki Baat’ had helped their business grow, one of the brothers said, “It has grown by leaps and bounds.”

“We have about 4,000 farmers associated with this and they say the unit, which was mentioned by the PM, has become a source of their livelihood,” he said.

Prime Minister was all smiles at the reply.

A visibly happy Modi wished all the StartUps very well.

Headline is by Ziraat Times