An incubation centre was inaugurated at the North Eastern Hill University (Nehu) here on Wednesday by Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment Ramdas Athawale.

Speaking on the occasion, Athawale said such incubation centres would benefit the people in developing their entrepreneurial skills and help generate and provide employment opportunities.

The concept of incubation centre is drawn from the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “self-efficiency in country’s products under Make in India” to provide an ecosystem for start-ups, to offer guidance, mentoring, physical space and network for funding and value-based collaboration for incubation of novel ideas, an official communiqué stated.

The incubation centre at Nehu will offer active incubation support to new proposed ventures to become independent and self-supporting over the period.

The centre will also help provide technical knowhow to these ventures to become efficient, competent models so that they become eligible for formal funding support from donor, philanthropists, network partners and investors.

Later, after reviewing schemes under his ministry, the Union minister said there are around 44,000 divyangs (differently-abled persons) in Meghalaya while there are as many as 2.86 crore divyangs in the country according to the 2011 census.

The minister said 11,000 divyangs have received the divyang pension of Rs 500 every month in the state. He said his ministry has increased the reservation in central government, state government and semi-government services for disabled people.

He also said during the last five years, around 4,800 divyangs have been provided with various devices and aids for assistance in five camps across Meghalaya.

Athawale said his ministry will examine the proposal of setting up of a sports academy for disabled in the state at a cost of Rs 350 crore.

He said the state government has given 50 acres of land for the purpose.