After tier 1 cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai etc, it is time for the smaller cities like Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Ahmadabad, Lucknow etc to join the race in becoming the biggest startup destinations of India.
With a casual environment dissolved in a traditional pool, Bhubaneswar may sound like an unlikely place in the first approach for startups to nourish and thrive. The city has seen sprawling development over the years and it still detains its rural appeal in a lot many ways. The target may sound challenging but the government is also not leaving any stone unturned to help startups prosper. Governments’ plans and the cities’ prime institutions are a perfect combination to nurture the entrepreneurship spirit among the youths. The initiatives, concessions and incentives by the government are just not left proclaimed but are also turning into reality in the full swing.
“We have some of the premier institutions of the country and the quality of our technical manpower is second to none. The policy and regulatory reforms implemented by our government are conductive of the growth of startups”, Patnaik said.
The Odisha government plans to spend over 4,000 crore on the IT and IT enabled startups that are trying to take wings in the state in the next five years. This can create as many as 1 lakh jobs in the state as said by Chief Minister Naveen Patnayak. The government is also working on an end-to-end internet service from state to the panchayat level to increase high speed internet penetration. Also, the IT export rate of the state is even more than the cumulative export from the other parts of the country over the last several years. This gives us enough reasons to consider Bhubaneswar as the next IT destination of India after Bangalore.
The state government is also in the process of setting up a Green Field Electronics Manufacturing Sector within Infovalley.
The Chief Minister said that it is the first state in the country to have collaborated with Silicon Valley, USA to attract foreign investments and to set up world-class incubators which can prove as one of the biggest steps in tapping the hidden and deserving potential. Bhubaneswar has also been ranked as one of the best city to start a business by the World Bank.
KIIT University in collaboration with the state government and organizations like MSME, and DST (Department of Science and Technology) has taken an initiative which goes by the name KIIT-TBI. It has established an impressive connection with all the TBIs (Technology Business Incubators) of the country and also internationally, for example, AABI (Asia Pacific), European UKBI and US NBIA. Currently, KIIT-TBI is focusing on developing Pharma-Biotech, Bioinformatics, Exploitive Microbiology, Agri-tech and Information Technology, Robotics and other Electronics and Engineering based technology. The incubated startups will be able to avail facilities like office space, high speed internet, conference room, libraries and meeting spaces.
One great startup that is blooming in the city’s heart is InDNA. It is a KIIT incubated startup by Birendranath Banerjee which tests how level of stress can affect the functioning of genes. Since the years it found incubation, KIIT has already funded its most high-tech startup with an amount of 15 crore for building the venture and 10 crore for buying the equipments.
The city of Bhubaneswar has always been a hub for starting up. With stories of IT companies like ESSPL and AABSyS which were started back in 1990s, it’s not new to hear about companies taking wings recently. There are certainly a good number of startups which are solving real problems in the region. A good example can be of Anurag Kyal who has developed a process to clear and use the weeds which are responsible for destroying the aquatic ecosystem of the Chilka Lake.
It is still a long way before these cities can become at par with the metro cities in terms of starting up. Bhubaneswar is in that phase where Bangalore was at its 1990s. But certainly the efforts by the government along with the reputed organizations can play a major role in breaking the myth that starting up is possible only in big cities. If someone has the passion to make this earth a better place to live in, he/she can find problems and start from anywhere.
