Launching Odisha’s startup policy at the investors’ meet here, Chief Minister NaveenPatnaik today said it was aimed at placing the state among the three topstartup hubs in the country by 2020.
“To encourage the startup ecosystem we have today launched the Odisha Startup Policy 2016. We wish to emergeamong the three top startup hubs in India by 2020 throughstrategic partnerships and policy interventions to support thestartups,” Patnaik said.
He said the policy was based on the initiatives andactivities that his government planned to undertake to develop a world class startup hub in Odisha and an ecosystem to facilitate at least 1,000 startups in the next five years.
The policy announced today along withincentives, assistance and grants also includes a startupcapital infrastructure fund or seed fund up to Rs 25 crore tosupport development of soft and hard infrastructure forstartup ecosystem.
It also said the government will participate in private state specific funds such as seed or venture capital funds, contributing up to 1/4th of the total size.
The Odisha Investors’ Meet 2016 that was organised here today was attended by industry leaders like Biocon Chief KiranMazumdar-Shaw, Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal, OYO Rooms CEO RiteshAgarwal and NASSCOM President R Chandrasekhar among others.
Patnaik said Odisha was emerging as the manufacturing hub on the country’s east coast and his government was broad basing the industrial development in the state.
To provide deep impetus to the holistic development of key sectors, the government was working on dedicatedsectoral policies for auto and auto components, healthcare andpharmaceuticals, plastic, chemicals and petrochemicals, renewable energy, textile and apparel, he said.
“The focus of my government is to promote employmentintensive sectors. We will launch these sectoral policiesbefore the end of this year,” he added.
Speaking at the event Sajjan Jindal, Chairman, JSWGroup
said Odisha was the best state to invest in the sectorshis company has been involved in.
Referring to the JSW’s steel plant in Karnataka, which has become the largest in the country over the years, he said a world class steel plant, probably the largest in the world, can be replicated in Odisha if the kind of support it received here is extended by that state also.
“We are looking forward to signing the MoU to build this largesteel plant which has been our long cherished dream to buildin Odisha. I am sincerely looking forward for that project,” headded.
Jindal also said the entire steel industry was coming together to build Biju Patnaik Institute of Technology which will produce more and more metallurgical engineers required for the industry.
The land had been allocated for the institute by state government in Bhubaneswar, he added.
Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal said the country at some level had missed the opportunity that manufacturing presented to it, adding technologywas the sector of the future which “we can not afford to miss.”
He said, “startup is the business of the future, that is where the next wave of jobs will come from; next wave ofdevelopment will come from. We are willing to help inevery other possible way; we are willing to participate inhelping Odisha achieve that,” he added.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said there was hugeopportunity for Odisha in the life sciences sector.
She urged the state government to make sure that it incorporates focus on life sciences cluster based on research.
PTI