Odisha targets at least 33% women led Startups

Bhubaneswar: To bring women entrepreneurs into spotlight, Odisha government have set an ambitious target of at least 33% start-ups should be formed by women as founder or co-founder. Presently this target is over achieved as 40% start-ups registered is led by women entrepreneurs. Startup Odisha Evangelist Sanjukta Badhei has said that State government wants to continue this momentum in long run. Odisha has more than 1300 startups and out of which nearly 500 is run by women, She added.

Elaborating various initiatives have taken under Startup Odisha for women, she said that, Special funding and capacity building programmes in place to help women entrepreneurs to nurture their ideas. We have monthly allowance grant of Rs 22,000 for promoting women entrepreneurship. Up to Rs 16 lakhs of product development and marketing support grant is also available to help in the process of building the product and take that to market. We are also providing travel assistance to start-ups to take part in various programmes organised nationally and internationally. They also have been given opportunities to showcase their products and services to wider audience on larger platforms.

She also talks about Startup Odisha Yatra 2.0 unveiled yesterday by Odisha CM which will cover more than 100 educational institutions of state and to reach out to 10,000 students within 60 days. A special Van was also flagged off to create awareness about this initiative.

To provide large scale investment to disserving start-ups, Odisha government has set up Rs 100 crores worth of Fund of Funds. We are inviting alternative investment funds and semi registered investors to invest in Odisha based start-ups. To provide robust ecosystem, O-Hub-a special facility for start-ups also set up at Bhubaneswar, She said.

On this occasion, ORMAS CEO Poonam Tapas Guha talks about various possibilities available in different parts of the state for women entrepreneurs and various kind of handholding supports by government for them. She urges entrepreneurs to visits peer Producer Groups to learn new techniques and for exchange of tools and ideas. As Odisha house to 62 tribal groups, we have many opportunities lies on their specific products like Harida, Bahada, broom, etc. Women can set enterprises collectively to sale these products to larger audience. In agriculture products also there is lot of scopes to market them.

She also urged every women entrepreneur to take steps to avail benefits of various government schemes announced for them and also request them to participate in Pallishree Mela of ORMAS which is organised annually in large scale basis.

She delivers this address at a seminar on theme of Growth of women entrepreneurs and their contribution to Odishas socio-economic scenario as part of the Propack Odisha 2022 and MSME Odisha 2022 organised at Janata Maidan, Bhubaneswar to celebrate 36th foundation day of Odisha Association of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (OASME).

Other dignitaries present at the event were Nitisha Mann, Deputy Director, MSME-DFO, Manasi Mandhata, Jt. Secy, MSME dept-Odisha, Aboli Sunil Naravane, Collector, Subarnapur, Jyotirmayee Mohanty, Chairwoman, OASME Women Wing, Sweta Pani, Secretary, OASME Women Wing, Pratishruti Jena, Amrita Sabat, Chandana Das, Sanjukta Panda, BijayaLaxmi Pradhan and Benorita Dash of OASME women Wing.