Our Correspondent Kohima | September 16 The North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFi) today announced that a new scheme ‘Venture Capital’ fund amounting to Rs. 100 crore will be launched by next month for the first generation entrepreneurs of the North East states. This was announced during the Business Meet 2016 here at de Oriental Grand hotel organized by NEDFi Kohima branch and Entrepreneurs Associates (EA) in the presence of DoNER Secretary, Naveen Verma. Addressing the Business Meet, Verma stressed on the need to focus marketing skill in the state of Nagaland. He expressed happiness that the trend of government jobs being the first choice for young people is going down and termed it as a good sign. Assuring to assist the entrepreneurs, he called upon them to decide the nature of business they desire to take up and the area in which they can focus. He also called upon them to know their strength and come forward to access the several schemes and projects that are available. He felt that handloom & handicraft, food processing, fashion designing, music, agriculture are some of areas the entrepreneurs from Nagaland can take up. In the tourism sector, one can also think of starting home stay for tourists, he said. NEDFi CMD, BP Muktieh urged the entrepreneurs from Nagaland to take advantage of “Venture Capital” fund and feel free to come for the scheme. In this, he called upon the entrepreneurs to start working on business plan/strategy. He, however, said that “if your business plan is not strong, Venture Capital will not help you.” “Business plan has to be very clear” he said adding that the ceiling limit will be Rs. 25 lakh to Rs.5 crore. He informed that the duration of this Venture Capital will be 10 years. However, if required, this can be extended to another 2 years. Muktieh further suggested that a joint venture on food processing unit will be viable in Nagaland. Besides, healthcare is one important area, since most of the patients go outside the state for medical treatment. As industry is lacking in the state, aggregation of services can also be one area the entrepreneurs can take up, he added. Earlier, NEDFi DGM, RE Zeliang highlighted the NDEFi schemes. EA coordinator and CEO Neichute Doulo also addressed the gathering. VENTURE CAPITAL FUND *The corpus of the fund will be Rs. 100 crore. Rs. 45 crore from Ministry of DoNER. Rs. 30 crore from NEDFi and remaining Rs. 25 crore from other institutions. *Investment will be done in enterprises, both in early stage and growth stage. *To operationalize the fund, NEDFi Trustee Limited and NEDFi Venture Capital Limited has already been incorporated. *Investment focus of the fund will be in various fields including but not limited for: IT & ITES, food processing, healthcare, tourism, retail, aggregation of services etc. *The fund is targeted to be launched by October 2016.