KATHMANDU, Jan 28: The Industrial Enterprise Development Institute (IEDI), a government entity established to support start-ups, has been largely limited to provide training to emerging entrepreneurs due to budget crunch.

According to Malina Shrestha Ranjit, Senior Business Promotion Officer of IEDI, sufficient amount of budget has not been allocated to IEDI to support start-ups in the country.

“We started providing start-up training from fiscal year 2016/17. Training is provided to potential and starting entrepreneurs about business awareness, new business creation, and entrepreneurial competency development but these training are limited only theoretically,” said Ranjit, “We are not able to help the trainees with practical guidance or with financial help.”

IEDI was established in 1996 under the Industrial Enterprise Development Institute Act 1996, to develop human and knowledge resources for entrepreneurship and business promotion in Nepal. Three different batches have received start-up training from IEDI so far.

“We are not only facing the problem of adequate budget. There are problems within the organization itself, lack of infrastructure, sufficient staff, and proper plans and policies have affected IEDI,” said Ranjit.

The start-up program is especially geared towards people who have business plans but lack idea about how to execute it, and those who are already involved in businesses but want further guidance to uplift their businesses.

According to Ranjit, although some trainees have good business plans, they are not able to bring their plans to reality due to lack of financial support from the government and banks. “There is a lack of integration from the side of government. We provide them all the training regarding entrepreneurship but even when they start their own businesses, there are problems such as lack of technical support and finances,” said Ranjit.

However, experts say that just providing training will not be effective unless the government entity like IEDI is able to offer financial guidance to entrepreneurs. “Just providing training will not help emerging enterprises because the most important factor for them is financial assistance. IEDI must help the entrepreneurs to be able to get access to finances from financial institutions. IEDI must create a linkage of new entrepreneurs with banks, the government and the private sector. A government institute like IEDI must help in building an ecosystem through enterprises,” said Niraj Khanal, CEO of Antarprerana.

 
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