Dakshina Kannada MP Capt. Brijesh Chowta exchanging the Memorandum of Understanding with industry leaders at the launch of Bolpu, an initiative to support aspiring entrepreneurs, on Saturday, July 12, in Mangaluru.
| Photo Credit: H.S. MANJUNATH
Dakshina Kannada MP Capt. Brijesh Chowta said the Bolpu initiative launched on Saturday, July 12, seeks to bring out at least 10 success stories of aspiring entrepreneurs every year, 50 in all for the next five years.
Speaking at the launch of Bolpu, meaning light or dawn, here, Capt. Chowta said the initiative seeks not just to find new ideas, but also to support ventures, ideas and thoughts which need support from policy, legal, regulatory, finance, and banking perspectives, and link it to government programmes.
Capt. Chowta said the Bolpu team would pick up around 10 ventures every year and over a period of five years, there would be at least 50 success stories from the region. Over a period of time, he wants Bolpu to be a community-driven programme wherein every resident of Dakshina Kannada finds a reason to support entrepreneurs.
Trade and industry bodies, including the Kanara Chamber of Industry and Commerce (KCCI), Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Kanara Industries Association (KIA), different government departments and others would hand-hold aspiring entrepreneurs to launch their projects, the MP said.
Capt. Chowta said Dakshina Kannada has several success stories of entrepreneurs; but not many stories were told to the world. Even temple management in the coast, right from performing poojas to distribution of anna prasada, was a model that could be followed by entrepreneurs.
Though the region had been the cradle for many start-ups in banking, hospitality, education, healthcare, and many more long back, when the word start-up was coined, the younger generation began moving towards the IT field. Now it was time to encourage young entrepreneurs to set up successful business models and implement the ‘Back to Ooru’ (back to native) initiative. Dakshina Kannada thus could be the start-up capital of many enterprises. Instead of attempting to bring in entities, namely, Infosys or TCS to Mangaluru, youngsters here should build the region’s own Infosys or TCS, he said.
On the occasion, the website of Bolpu along with QR code was launched to guide the aspiring entrepreneurs. TiE Mangaluru president Rohith Bhat, KCCI vice-president P.B. Ahmed Mudassar, CII Mangaluru president K.N. Nataraj Hegde and Karnataka Digital Economy Mission’s Beyond Bengaluru vice-president Chetan Dixit announced support of their organisations to the Bolpu initiative. Later, they exchanged a memorandum of understanding with Capt. Chowta.
Mangaluru City South MLA D, Vedavyasa Kamath, former Minister B. Nagaraja Shetty, former MLC Ganesh Karnik and others were present.
Published – July 12, 2025 07:37 pm IST