ICAR- National Research Centre for Banana, Trichy has organized five days Entrepreneurship Training Programme on ‘Value addition and Marketing of banana’ to farmers and entrepreneurs of North Eastern state, Meghalaya. The training was sponsored by Meghalaya Basin Development Authority [MBDA], Shillong, Meghalaya. A total of 15 participants took part in the hands-on training programme. The programme was focussed on cultivation, production and marketing of value added products from green unripe and ripe bananas as well as from other parts of banana and plantain aiming at present government strategies like Skill development for the least developed states, wealth generation from waste and doubling the farmers’ income. They have been educated on importance of getting license from Food Safety and Standards Authority of India as food safety measures. During the Presidential address, Dr. S. Uma, Director of the institute appreciated the trainees for taking keen interest in selecting banana value addition as their business option for their development, as banana being an important commercial crop for the livelihood of NE state. She also emphasised the importance of rural youth, both men and women’s active participation in the upliftment of the society. While speaking on the occasion, Mr. Fairborn Gathphoh, Business Development Officer, MBDA thanked the Centre for hosting the fruitful training programme in short-time for the benefit of farming community, entrepreneurs and officials of Meghalaya state. Drs. V. Kumar, K.N. Shiva, and Dr. P. Suresh Kumar, Course coordinators briefed that the entrepreneurs learnt new skill on cultivation, value addition and marketing of more than 30 different value added products such as Banana Fig, Jam, RTS fruit juice, Sweet chutney from ripened fruits; Chips, Sauce, Flour, Baby Food, Health drink, Soup mix and bakery products from unripe fruits; Pickle (thokku) from flowers and Candy from central core stem and Fibre from pseudostem sheath. As a part of the training programme, they have been taken to Solar Dryer unit and banana market to understand marketing system and role of FPO’s in the state.