Odisha promises sops for start-ups in Innovation policy

Start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs in Odisha can look up to a host of incentives for their ventures as the government readies a new policy to help develop an ecosystem for innovation.

The state's draft policy on innovation has an array of incentives for the would-be entrepreneurs. Start-ups would enjoy full exemption from entry tax for a period of five years and 100 per cent reimbursement of paid stamp duty and registration fee.

The draft policy also promises annual reimbursement of value added tax/central sales tax up to a maximum of Rs 50 lakh turnover by the incubated start-up companies. The industries will be incentivised to create facilities for incubation of domain specific hard technology-based start-ups.

The policy talks of encouraging angel investment and venture capital by providing necessary incentives. While the government will arrange easy term loans for start-ups from nationalised banks and financial institutions, tax concession will be offered to individuals for investing on these companies. The government will also come up with a funding mechanism to provide seed money to the deserving start-ups.

Priority will be given to innovation based start-ups in sectors like agriculture, health, education, sanitation, renewable energy and environment. Such units will be provided support by government departments for procurement and dissemination of products. Also, the government will reimburse the cost of filing and prosecution of patent applications by the incubated start-ups, subject to a ceiling of Rs 50,000.

The start-up entrepreneurs will be provided easier norms of declaring bankruptcy in the event of enterprise failure after verification from the competent authorities. The government will ensure minimum regulatory compliance for them. To promote innovations in science & technology, the state government will take up a host of initiatives. State of the art research & development (R&D) facilities will be established especially for cutting edge technologies. Innovation centres will be set up with plug and play working space and research facilities and to provide support for patenting, testing and standardisation and project formulation and marketing.

The draft Innovation policy stresses on capacity building to train the budding entrepreneurs on the entire life cycle of innovation.

This covers all facets- from idea generation to formulating plan for developing protypes to procuring equipment and fabrication of components to testing, standardisation and patenting.

At the stage of scaling up, the capacity building will cover training for developing bankable projects, marketing of products and other related set of activities.

In order to improve domain specific capabilities, necessary network of institutes, experts and industry will be developed. The universities in the state will undertake special programmes including management development programmes and certificate programmes as short-term courses. Incubation centres will be set up in select government colleges at district level and such centres will act as the nucleus of all innovations.