STPI to set up incubation facility at Balasore

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), a society under the Union ministry of Communications and Information Technology, will start an incubation facility at Balasore spreading over 5000 square feet (sq ft).

To kickstart the operation at Balasore, STPI has set up a temporary incubation facility at NOCCi Business Park. This will be inaugurated on July 4 coinciding with the observation of Digital India week, said Manas Ranjan Panda, Director, STPI Bhubaneswar.

About 10 to 15 start-up companies can start their operation with plug and play facilities to be provided at the complex. The IT (information technology) and ESDM (electronic system design and manufacturing) units can operate from the facility, he added.

State IT minister Pranab Prakash Das, Omkar Rai, director general, STPI and Vishal Dev, chairman cum managing director, Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) are slated to attend the event. The temporary facility will be operational till the Balasore STPI centre starts its full-fledged operation.

The Balasore STPI centre is planned to come up with 20,000 sq ft built-up area at an investment of Rs 10 crore at Bampada industrial estate. The STPI centre at coastal district would act as a resource centre for IT/ITes exporting units by offering general infrastructural facilities, ready to incubation space, high speed data communication(HSDC) with 100 per cent uninterrupted data connectivity and other amenities required for export of software and services.

Currently there are three operational STPI centres in the state at Bhubaneswar, Rourkela and Berhampur.

On July 5, Rai is also slated to inaugurate construction work for an additional incubation facility of 10,000 sq ft at Berhampur.

In a related development, the state government has approved the detailed project report (DPR) for an ESDM incubation centre for the start-up units in Bhubaneswar. The project, to cost about Rs 22 crore, will be set up over a period of five years.

As per the proposal, the funding of the project will be shared equally by the state government and the Centre while STPI will implement it.

About 40 start-ups in ESDM sector will be benefitted by the project. The incubation centre aims at achieving the objectives of the ESDM vision outlined in the National Policy on Electronics and other policies.

The funds will be invested for providing infrastructure facilities, testing labs and financing the ESDM start-ups for creating a complete ecosystem in the state.