Odisha has never been an industrial hub: Minister

Odisha Industries minister Pratap Keshari Deb on Friday said that the State was never an industrial hub. Deb was part of the second Startup Yatra campaign, which kick-started on Friday in Bhubaneswar.

Answering a reporter’s question, Deb said, “I have said this many times before, there was never an industry in Odisha. And the government does not create industries. It is created by entrepreneurs with their ideas.”

“When we came to power in 2000, Odisha did not have food security. It took us 15 years to improve our economy and agriculture. Now, we are on our way to develop entrepreneurs,” he said.

“Odisha Startup Yatra is a step towards realising CM Naveen Patnaik’s dream of taking Odisha towards the path of industrialisation. We have begun this drive in 2019-20 as a division under Odisha MSME department,” Deb said.

“The primary objective of Startup Odisha is to develop entrepreneurship skills among students. This is a continuous process and I am glad that more than 1700 startups have already been created in Odisha. This will not only help the economic ecosystem, it will also develop a social ecosystem as well,” he said.

Speaking about the mindset of the people of Odisha, Deb said, “Odisha by and large is a job-oriented market. But that mindset is gradually changing and tilting towards entrepreneurship. We will reach every college and university in Odisha and conduct awareness workshops on entrepreneurship. We have also created another venture called Startup Express, which will reach out to school children from class 8 to 10. They will be made aware that a job is not the only goal of education. The world is a big place and there are ample opportunities.”

“We will recognise budding entrepreneurs and invite them here to register their venture. We will finance their venture by studying the market potential of their product,” Deb said.