Jigme Wangchuk always wanted to do something different after completing Class XII. But he was not able to shape up the idea until recently.

After having harvested about 250kg cardamom from his parent’s two-acre of land in Gosarling, Tsirang, he now knows what he is going to do. He wants to go into producing bagged cardamom tea.

To further develop his idea and to learn the techniques of doing business, he is currently attending a 10-day basic entrepreneur course in Damphu. There are 32 other young entrepreneurs attending the training.

What inspired him further was the demo of business he conducted in the Sunday market as a part of the course. He made 20 bagged tea and were sold instantly. “I’m hopeful my business will be soon a reality,” he said.

Jigme Wangchuk will begin working on the fund and large-scale production soon after completing the course. The idea is to keep cardamom in the country by making value added products.  “This will bring in more income than selling just the cardamom,” he said.

Another participant, Agnidhi Acharya, 24, has been engaged in dairy farming in Kilkhorthang after completing Class XII in 2012. He decided to focus on making dairy products such as ice cream, sweets, packaged milk, and packaged curd for export.

“It is a premature business idea yet,” he said.

The participants have so far came up with nine business ideas.

One of the trainers, Kinzang Duba, said that during the training, they would be learning how to propose a business idea, finding funding agencies and management, among others.

“We’ll help them position their business idea. They have to put in effort to make it realize,” he said.

Most of the participants are already engaged in some kind of business, mostly agro-based.

The training that is organised jointly by Ministry of Labour and Thimphu TechPark will end on October 12.

Nirmala Pokhrel | Tsirang