BHUBANESWAR: The Start-up Council of the State on Wednesday approved two new start-ups for product development and financial assistance in the field of automation in industrial maintenance and alternative technology for repair of oil and gas pipelines.Start-up Odisha, an initiative of the State Government, has so far recognised 130 start-up ventures in 34 sectors. “So far, 18 innovative entrepreneurs are getting financial assistance from the council. With the fresh approval, the number increased to 20,” said Additional Chief Secretary (MSME) Laxmi Narayan Gupta after the meeting.
He further said four incubation centres operating in the State have been brought into the fold of the council.
The second meeting of the Start-up Council held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi here discussed various activities for next six months and approved an expenditure of `15 crore. The meeting nominated XIMB, Centurion University, IITM and KIIT for evaluating the start-up proposals and sponsoring those to the council.Earlier, the council had nominated six nodal agencies for evaluating and processing start-up applications. These were IIT, Bhubaneswar, STPI, Bhubaneswar, NIT, Rourkela, IMMT, Bhubaneswar, OUAT and NIFT, Bhubaneswar.
The council further decided to provide all support for the establishment of a state-of-art centre of excellence in the Research and Entrepreneurship Park of IIT, Bhubaneswar. “It will be a centre of Virtual and Augmented Reality for Immersive Visualization. The centre was given a kick-start by philanthropic contribution of `2.5 crore by Susmita Bagchi and a matching grant of `2.5 crore by the State Government,” Gupta said.Director General of Software Technology Park of India (STPI) Omkar Rai assured all support from STPI. He said STPI will provide financial support of `2.5 crore for the centre.
Director IIT, Bhubaneswar, RV Raja Kumar said the centre would have a world class incubation centre, laboratory, highly focused courses along with education and skill development programmes. Chairman of Odisha Skill Development Authority Subroto Bagchi, a member of the council, suggested having more engagement with sponsoring and evaluating institutions for scouting increasing number of innovations.
The start-ups working with support from Start-up Odisha Initiative in different sectors ranging from agriculture to aeronautics, analytic to virtual reality, health sector to human resources, IT services to internet of things, renewable energy to robotics and from tourism to transportation, Gupta said.