BHUBANESWAR: Amid concerns over Odisha’s drop in national startup ranking, the state government on Monday claimed that the decline was recorded during the previous BJD regime.
Launching a scathing attack on the BJD, which earlier in the day had accused the BJP government of “killing the vision of former chief minister Naveen Patnaik to make Odisha a top state in startup ecosystem in the country”, MSME minister Gokulananda Mallik said the opposition party should reflect on its performance instead.
Speaking to mediapersons, Mallik said the startup ranking was based on the assessment carried out for the period from January 2023 to November 2024. “Most of the period was under BJD rule while the BJP government assumed office only in June 2024. We were in power for just six months of the period covered by the report,” the minister said.
Mallik, however, asserted that Odisha under BJP government will do much better in the next startup ranking. Highlighting the government’s achievement in the MSME sector, the minister said they have facilitated 2,550 new startups in the last one-and-half year.
In addition, he said the government is actively supporting the young entrepreneurs across the state, especially in the rural areas and providing facilities and opportunities to them at the grassroots to boost innovation.
“We are now initiating measures to train college-going youth and budding entrepreneurs at block-level to launch their own startups. Our government has even introduced subsidy plan for different sectors. The subsidy for some sectors is as high as 35 per cent,” he said.
Odisha, a ‘top performer’ in the fourth startup ranking 2022, has slipped to ‘aspiring leaders’ category in the fifth ‘States’ Startup Ecosystem Ranking’ carried out by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The report was released recently.