New Start-up Hub to come up in Odisha by March 2021

Bhubaneswar: With an aim at creating employment opportunities for youth, Odisha Government will set up an advanced Start-up Hub with state of art common facilities by March next year.

This was revealed at the State Startup Council Meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy here today.

With completion of the new start-up hub by March 2021, it would be a centre of excellence with co-working spaces, fab-lab and common services under one roof.

The meeting also accorded in principle approval for providing financial assistance to 5 Startups and 4 Incubators. The Startups considered for assistance included Awalk Innovation Pvt. Ltd, Subhalaxmi Future Solution (OPC) Pvt Ltd, Sanlop Health Care Solutions Pvt, Ltd, Batti Ghar Sustainable Solution Pvt Ltd, and, Xioty Solutions Pvt Ltd.

The Incubators considered for assistance included Incovations Foundation, Berhampur; Sri Sri University Innovation Pvt Ltd, Bhubaneswar; Foundation for Technology and Business Incubation, NIT, Rourkela; and, KIIT Technology Business Incubator, Bhubaneswar.

The government has estimated around Rs 2.88 crore as total assistance for these units. Tripathy directed to make a third party assessment of the outcomes from utilization of these grants. Two national level institutions namely Central Tool Room and Training Centre (CTRTC), Bhubaneswar and Institute of Life Science (LIS), Bhubaneswar were empanelled as Nodal Agency under Startup Odisha.

At the meeting, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Principal Secretary Satyabrata Sahu outlined the issues for discussion.

Chairing the meeting, Tripathy directed to scale up the start-up eco-system in Odisha through strategic partnership and facilitating policy intervention. He emphasized on a strong relationship of support, facilitation and handholding between the Incubators and the Startup entrepreneurs.

The Chief Secretary also directed the officials to expedite the process for launching of the Fund-of-Funds for Start-ups.

The issues relating to creation of intellectual property (IP) right registration support were also discussed at the meeting. Chief Secretary directed to workout appropriate policy norms for the purpose.

Worth mentioning, Odisha has been recognised as a Leader State in national Startup Ranking for the year 2019 at National level conducted by the department for Promotion of Industry and International Trade. The number of Start-up ventures in Odisha has grown up to 774 with employment opportunities for more than 6000 youth.

“The Council recognized the First Startup on 14th June, 2017. Since then because of the facilitating support, the number of recognized strtaups has increased to 774 including 250 women led units by November, 2020,” Sahu said at the meeting.

Total 17 Startup Incubators and 17 MSME Incubators have started functioning. More than Rs.15 cr financial assistance have been provided to 196 start-ups and incubators sponsored through 13 Nodal agencies, he added.