IIM Calcutta will fund 40 start-ups with up to Rs 25 lakh each and monitor them while providing them knowledge so that they become successful self-sustaining businesses.

The programme, Invent, is part of the Joka institute's plan to reach out to potential entrepreneurs.

The UK's Department for International Development and India's Technology Development Board will provide the institute with Rs 12.5 crore to promote the model.

The model targets eight low-income states, including Bengal, to promote entrepreneurship and arrest the problem of unemployment among the youth.

The other states are Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Apart from IIM-C, Odisha's KIIT University, IIT Kanpur and Startup Oasis - an incubation centre in Jaipur that is developing an ecosystem in Rajasthan - will receive similar funding.

IIM-C director Saibal Chattopadhyay outlined the programme details at the institute's city office on Wednesday.

The IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP), a non-profit company established under the aegis of IIM-C to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, will monitor the programme.

CEO Subhrangshu Sanyal of the IIMCIP said the institute was trying to reach out to the state's unemployed youth through Invent and arm them with successful business models.

Sanyal said anyone could be eligible. Say, someone who comes up with a plan to provide affordable health care to remote parts of the state, he said.

The person can come up with a low-cost testing device or imaging device that would be useful in rural hospitals, he said. "It could also be by leveraging IT facility, say specialist doctors are made available via video conferencing to the low-income group."

Proponents of such models will always profit, but the efforts will resonate with a social cause, he said.

Director Chattopadhyay said such models were called social enterprise as they used innovative solutions to meet social challenges.

IIM-C faculty Ashok Banerjee said the institute would get in touch with the chamber of commerce to identify potential entrepreneurs.

"We plan to hold campaigns in colleges in far corners of the state to identify potential candidates. We will hold such interactions in Bihar, too," Banerjee said. "But we are open to funding models from the eight states, which have been identified as low-income ones."

Director Chattopadhyay said the proposals would be vetted and a shortlist of 40 entrepreneurs, who would be mentored for three years, prepared. "We will use our alumni network to mentor and help them become successful," he said. "Unemployment is there but there's no dearth of bright business ideas among the youth. We just need to tap them."