Thursday, August 28, 2014: The Odisha government has urged centre to provide 30 per cent funding to its Rs 1000 million venture capital fund. The fund aims to to promote more startups in the micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) sector.
The demand has been raised by state MSME minister, Jogendra Behera. A discussion about the demand was held at a recent meeting of state MSME ministers, which was organised by the central MSME ministry. The corpus fund will be used for MSME startups which will be set up in collaboration with Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd (GVFL). This Gujarat government undertaking has been working since last 24 years in venture finance and now they have been roped in as the partner and consultant for fund generation.
The regulatory, legal aspects and other formalities will be taken care by GVFL. A MoU (memorandum of understanding) will be signed soon between GVFL and the state MSME department. A concept paper will be developed by the state government and it will be supported by successful venture capital models in the country. An authorised capital of Rs 10 million will form an asset management company (AMC) and the contribution for the same on Odisha government’s part will be 51 per cent. Rest of the contribution will be done by GVFL, AMC employees and others too. The central MSME ministry has also been urged to provide support for five common facility centres under Micro & Small Enterprise Cluster Development Programme.
The status of ‘Centre of Excellence’ is also in the demand for Institute of Entrepreneurship in Odisha. The minister is looking forward to boost the coir sector in Odisha and in the process he also urged for a revival of Regional Coir Training & Design Centre in Bhubaneswar. The rural areas’ infrastructure needs also require to be addresses and in order to do that the Union MSME ministry is likely to provide financial support for industrial estates at block and panchayat level, as suggested by Behera.
