A review revealed that in Odisha the Startup initiative has registered around 233 startups across 39 sectors within one year with a registration rate of around 20 per month, which is more than the national average of 17-18 per month. These units are presently providing employment to around 2,000 persons.
Chairing the Startup Council meeting held here on Thursday, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi advised the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Department to promote employment intensive Startups.
The meeting approved the proposals for registering three new institutions as nodal centers for the startups. These are Institute of Hotel management, Bhubaneswar, Sri Sri University, Cuttack and NIST, Brahmapur. The proposal for providing financial assistance to Technology Business Incubator in NIIT, Rourkela and Technology Business Incubator in KIIT, Bhubaneswar were also approved in the meeting. Need based assistance was approved in favour of Ordunio labs for carrying forward its innovation of embedded Sim. The innovative ideas of Coastkings Pvt ltd for sea food processing and packaging was also accorded approval for need based assistance.
Around 30 units in Odisha have been provided various benefits like monthly allowance, product development assistance, need based assistance, reimbursement of expenses and one time matching capital grant. Presently seven recognised incubators are operating for startups in the State.
These incubators are in IIT, Bhubaneswar, NIIT, Rourkela, Institute of Mineral and Mining Technology, Bhubaneswar, Software Park of India, Bhubaneswar, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, NIFT, Bhubaneswar, KIIT Technology Business Incubator, Bhubaneswar, Centurion, Bhubaneswar and Xavier University, Jatani.
Around 4 lakh sqft of space have been made available for the startups in these incubators. Chief Secretary Padhi directed to intensify the Startup Odisha Yatra launched by the Chief Minister for motivating more number of youths to venture their innovative startups.