Odisha MSME fund likely to be operational from December

Fund would get Rs 50 cr from state, Rs 50 cr from NITI Aayog and balance Rs 50 cr likely from banks

The Odisha government expects to start funding MSME (micro, small & medium enterprises) start-ups from its venture capital fund with a corpus of Rs 150 crore, from December this year.

Odisha Venture Finance Ltd (OVFL), an asset management company, has been formed to manage the venture fund called 'Odisha MSME Fund'.

The fund would have a contribution of Rs 50 crore from the Odisha government. While the NITI Aayog is expected to pitch in Rs 50 crore, the balance Rs 50 crore is likely to be raised from banks.

"We are in the process of appointing a chief executive officer for managing the fund. We are hopeful the fund will be operational from December", said Panchanan Dash, state MSME secretary. The state government has already approved the commitment of Rs 50 crore. It will be released in two tranches of Rs 25 crore each.

The state MSME department has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd (GVFL), a Gujarat government undertaking with 24 years of experience in venture finance. GVFL has been roped in as the partner and consultant for creation of the fund.

GVFL will provide support in getting the nod from Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and all other regulatory approvals, preparation of documents and presentation to prospective investors. It will provide necessary marketing documents.

As per the MoU, the proposed authorised share capital of OVFL is Rs one crore. OVFL is being structured as a public limited company.

The state government has nominated two directors in the board of the company- Panchanan Dash, secretary, state MSME department and Bibhuti Bhusan Behera, managing director, Odisha Small Industries Corporation (OSIC).

It may be noted that Odisha is undertaking cluster-based approach for promoting 60,000 start-ups in 2015-16. The state government has a target of generating 0.4 million jobs by promoting 0.15 million enterprises in the MSMEs sector during 2015-19.