Dev Bhoomi Udyamita Yojana Is Changing Young Lives In Uttarakhand
Newz Daddy Educational Updates
On a cold morning in Bhimtal, the gentle hum of bees fills the mountain air as Pankaj Pandey carefully lifts a honey-rich wooden frame from his family’s beehives. Just a few years ago, this small apiary barely earned enough to support the household. Pankaj, an MBA student at Kumaun University, attended a two-day boot camp under the Devbhoomi Udyamita Yojana (DUY), an initiative of the Department of Higher Education, Government of Uttarakhand, implemented by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Ahmedabad. The camp ignited his passion to turn his family’s traditional honey harvesting into a value-added, branded enterprise. With the guidance of mentors, he developed a Business Model Canvas. DUY mentors spotted his potential and selected him for a 12-day Entrepreneurship Development Programme, which further refined his business idea.
The Devbhoomi Udyamita Yojana (DUY) officially states its aim is to build entrepreneurial skill development and self-employment opportunities among youth of Uttarakhand, and it collaborates with EDII to do so.
The DUY office is based at Doon University Campus, Dehradun, indicating a state-level institutional setup for these interventions.
Pankaj launched Parv Honey, a brand built on authenticity and trust. He received seed funding of Rs. 75,000 under DUY. Within a year, he generated revenue of Rs. 5,00,000. His goal is to build a sustainable, trust-based brand with a strong regional identity and scale the business to Rs. 25 lakh by 2028. DUY offers boot camps and Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDPs) that include hands-on workshops, business simulations, mentoring and access to seed funding. DUY’s support goes beyond training—there is help for business registration, branding, and launching the venture, which helps students like Pankaj move from idea to real business.
Similarly, witnessing the disturbances caused by forest fires, Zainab Siddiqui, a postgraduate in Botany from the Government. PG College, New Tehri, founded Eco Nexus Innovation Pvt. Ltd., which makes composite boards from dry pine needles. DUY training helped her refine the concept, file a patent and trademark and attract funding support of Rs. 75,000 from the Uttarakhand Government, Rs. 1 lakh as CSR grant from Hero Moto Corp and Rs. 5 lakh from IIM Kashipur.
DUY states its focus is inclusive, youth exploring livelihood opportunities, and marginalised and differently-abled communities are among the target groups. DUY is establishing Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in institutions across Uttarakhand specialised in sectors like agri-food processing, organic farming, heritage management, and more, so innovations like Zainab’s composite board idea align with these sectoral thrusts.
Prince Mandal, from Maldevta, Dehradun, who entered DUY intending to build vending machines but, with mentor guidance, pivoted to crafting glass cupcakes with a 21-day shelf life under his brand Emojis Café, for which he was awarded a seed fund of Rs. 75,000. He also plans to integrate a zero-waste kitchen model with solar drying and processing to further align with green practices.
DUY’s boot camps emphasise design thinking, idea generation, prototype development and startup pitching.
DUY assists in registering business entities, arranging funding, branding and packaging support to student enterprises, helping young ventures like Emojis Café scale. Under the Dev Bhoomi Udyamita Yojana, villages are gradually transforming into hubs of local opportunity. Young people who once dreamt of migrating are now building ventures at home, blending tradition with innovation and redefining success in the hills.
One of DUY’s stated goals is to reduce migration of youth by creating local livelihood opportunities through entrepreneurship.
DUY’s ecosystem-building work includes sensitising campuses, training faculty mentors (185 mentors in the article) and establishing entrepreneurship cells in 124 campuses, steps that help institutionalise local enterprise culture. Launched in September 2023, DUY has set an entrepreneurial momentum in the State, with institutionalisation of entrepreneurship in 124 campuses through Devbhoomi Udyamita Kendras, thus sensitising 14,260 students about the benefits of entrepreneurship as a career. To keep the pace sustainable, a cadre of 185 faculty mentors has also been instituted. Notably, nearly 8,901 students have been imparted focused training in New Enterprise Creation and scaling up of enterprises. All the initiatives were implemented under the aegis of a curriculum which EDII had specially developed, keeping in view the elements of continuity, stability and long-term impact.
According to the DUY website, the scheme includes Boot Camps, EDPs, Centre of Excellence creation, and other features to create a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem on campuses. DUY monitors and supports multiple indicators, such as student enterprises formed, product branding, and startups registered, to ensure long-term impact and sustainability.
