Orissa seeks national level institute for entrepreneurship development

The Orissa government has urged the Centre to set up a national level Entrepreneurship Development Institute in the state.

It has sent a proposal to the ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in this regard.

The move follows the recent discussion of an official in the rank of special secretary in the state industry department with the officials of the MSME ministry regarding the project.

The industry department sent the proposal to the ministry after obtaining the approval of the government.

The state government, in its proposal, has proposed to convert the existing Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) at Bhubaneswar, a nodal agency of the Orissa government, to a national level institute for MSMEs. The proposed national institute for MSME would be in line with National Institute of Enterprise and Business Development, Noida, National Institute of MSME, at Hyderabad and Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship located at Guwahati. Since the Union government plans to set up three such new centres in the country, the state government intends to cash in on the opportunity. The state government has offered to provide the infrastructure including land belonging to IED for setting up this institute.

“Following discussion with the ministry officials, we have sent a proposal to convert IED, Bhubaneswar to a national level Entrepreneurship Development Institute. It would cater to the requirement of the eastern states in terms of meeting the needs of appropriate manpower for the SME sector”, a senior official told Business Standard. It may be noted, the government has set up a committee to chalk out future role of IED. The committee comprises of members from professional bodies like Indian Institute of Management (IIM), National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (NI-MSME), Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) and Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar.

Meanwhile, the government has upgraded five District Industries Centres (DICs) to level-3 from level-2 earlier. Those upgraded DICs are now being headed by a General Manager in the class-1 rank compared to class-II officers earlier. The move aims at achieving better co-ordination with the district collectors for the development of MSMEs in the state.