Governments across the country and indeed across the world have been facing increasing risks of dissentions and social unrest. The problem is more pronounced in places where there incidences of unemployment are high and the average financial distribution or earning capacity of the society is skewed. Such a social atmosphere also provides favorable conditions for a section of unscrupulous opportunists with connection and resources to bank in on the uncertainties and confusions to their personal benefits, thus giving rise to a vicious cycle of unemployment, poverty and opportunism further fuelled by nepotism and cronyism- the exact condition prevailing at present in our small state, much as most of those in power and authority would have us think otherwise. However bleak the future might look under the prevailing circumstances, the most obvious and pragmatic solution to this threat has to be one which takes away the conditions which gives rise to the undesirable situations. The increasing attention and emphasis being given to the development and support of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship by the government is perhaps the most important and timely step towards this end. The inauguration of Livelihood Business Incubator (LBI) at Khadi and Village Industries Board campus at Lamphelpat during the recent state visit of Shri Giriraj Singh Minister of State, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) is a positive development and one which has to be applauded notwithstanding the fact that such an initiative has been long overdue in the state. There is however many a slip between the cup and the lip and the act of inaugurating the incubation centre should be viewed as the most basic and initial step towards making a positive effort at developing various enterprises in Manipur and not an end in itself.
There are various factors which will determine the efficacy and relevancy of the incubation centre, and they need to be discussed and analysed in depth in light of the continuing challenges being faced by the entrepreneurs and dismally high rate of failure of new ventures, especially in the state. Incubation centres provide start-up businesses with a variety of services such as physical space, office equipment, business services, management guidance and an enabling environment to facilitate their development until they are capable of surviving on their own after exit from the incubator. At the macro level, they regenerate public confidence in entrepreneurship and help create an entrepreneurial environment. In short, incubations centres provide finance, synergy, economy and management to entrepreneurs, and the lack of any single factor would render the whole exercise a farce. The most pertinent question at this juncture is: how well equipped is the recently inaugurated Incubation Centre for providing these vital inputs to the entrepreneurs in the state? An answer which will determine the path Manipur will be taking in the immediate future- that of a state incubating entrepreneurs or one incubating insurgents and dissidents.
