National Entrepreneurship Awards

The National Entrepreneurship Awards have been instituted by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE) in 2016 to encourage a culture of entrepreneurship across the country. These premier awards seek to recognise and honour entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship ecosystem builders for their outstanding efforts.

The National Entrepreneurship Awards seek to recognise the efforts and achievements of exceptional entrepreneurs and those individuals and organisations who are working in the field of entrepreneurship development. The Awards also seek to highlight models of excellence for others to emulate and improve upon.

Award Categories

The Awards are given under two tracks.

1. Enterprise Awards Track - This is to honour the entrepreneurs who have created exemplary enterprises, primarily in the unconventional and untapped spaces. There are three categories which are positioned to cater to different entrepreneurial models in the country.

• Enterprise with Initial Investment up to INR 1 Lakh
• Enterprise with Initial Investment above INR 1 Lakh to 10 Lakhs
• Enterprise with Initial Investment above INR 10 Lakh to 1 Crore

2. The Ecosystem Builders’ Award Track : Aims to recognise the Institutions, Incubators, Mentors and Promoters/Facilitators of rural entrepreneurship who are building the soft and hard infrastructure in the country to enable the entrepreneurship grow. There are six (6) awards in this track.

• Entrepreneurship Development Institutes/ Organizations
• Incubation Centres – Public Sector
• Incubation Centres – Private Sector
• Mentors – Public Sector
• Mentors – Private Sector
• Promoters of Rural Producer Enterprises

Additionally awards will be presented to the following special categories

• Women Entrepreneur - should individually/ collectively own 51% or more of the paid up capital in the enterprise.
• Entrepreneur from SC/ST Category - Person(s) from SC/ST category should individually/ collectively own 51% or more of the paid up capital in the enterprises.
• Entrepreneur from Persons with Disability (PwD) category - Person(s) with Disability should individually/ collectively own 51% or more of the paid up capital in the enterprise.
• Entrepreneur from Difficult Areas - Major operation (production/research/processing etc.) should be located in the North Eastern States / Jammu & Kashmir / Islands / Backward Districts (as notified by GoI).

The Award

• Enterprise Awards : The Award Winner will receive award money of INR 5 lakh each to the enterprise, Trophy and a Certificate.
• Ecosystem Builder Awards : The Award Winner will receive award money of INR 10 lakhs (Institutions) and INR 5 lakhs (Individuals), Trophy and a Certificate.

Eligibility To Participate

1. Enterprise Awards Track

• Entrepreneur’s age should be below the age of 40 years as on April 1st of the year of award.
• The candidate should be a First-Generation Entrepreneur/s. The definition of a first-generation entrepreneur for the scheme is "An entrepreneur who is not in the same line of business as his/her parent. They should have started the enterprise on their own initiative, idea or innovation".
• The enterprise should be a formal entity.
• An entrepreneur must be a founder/co-founder of an enterprise/sole proprietorship firm/ partnership/ own account enterprise.

2. The Ecosystem Builders’ award

• Entrepreneurship Development Institutes/Organisations: Refers to Institutes/ organizations teaching, training and offering courses on entrepreneurship development.
• Incubation Centres: Refers to Institutes/organizations providing incubation, mentorship and handholding support.
• Mentors: Refers to educationists, advisors, consultants working towards entrepreneurship development.
• Promoters of Rural Producer Enterprises: Refers to institutions/organizations or individuals directly involved in the promotion of farmer producer companies/cooperatives or SHG enterprises through mentoring and providing soft skill support such as development of organisational structure, training on management skills, conflict resolutions, etc. Such institutions/organisations may be governmental, non-governmental, private institutions or persons working in their individual capacity.

Past Award winners

To view the category-wise list of past award winners, click here.

Source : National Entrepreneurship Awards.