Chief Executive Officer of CGTMSE Sandeep Verma and Prangyasmita Sahu, Director, Institutional Finance, Department of Finance, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena; Development Commissioner; Additional Chief Secretary, H&UD; Principal Secretary, PR&DW and Principal Secretary, Finance were present.

As per the MoU, CGTMSE will provide guarantee upto 85% of the loan amount, while the state government will guarantee the rest 15% of the loan amount availed under ‘SWAYAM’ scheme, which was launched to promote entrepreneur skills among the youths and empower them to become ‘Swatantra Yuva Udyami’.

As per the norms on share of guarantee coverage, the government, on behalf of the beneficiaries, will bear the annual guarantee fee charged by the CGTMSE.

Principal Secretary, PR&DW department, briefed the officials of banks in the state about the new scheme. Besides, they were informed that the government will bear the interest burden accrued from the loan under the scheme.

Under ‘SWAYAM’ scheme, youth in the age group of 18-35 years will be provided interest-free bank loan for project cost of Rs 1 lakh to start a new business or expand their existing business.

The upper-age limit for the applicants belonging to SC/ST/PwD/Urban Transgender categories is 40 years. To avail the loan under the scheme, the borrower will neither have to pay any processing fee nor collateral is needed by the bank. The repayment period for the loan will be 4 years including moratorium period varying from 3 to 6 months as per the rules of the bank.

The MoU was signed at the TPSODL’s corporate office in the presence of its CEO Amit Kumar Garg and Principal of Gopabandhu Industrial Training Institute, Ambaguda, Jeypore Rajib Lochan Dash on Thursday. The MoU aims at creating a linkage between academic and industry learning for ITI students, enhancing their skills and making them industry-ready.

Under this collaboration, training will be provided with a focus on industry-specific skills, incorporating utmost safety measures. The students of the ITI will have access to hands-on training facilities that simulate real-life circumstances, as well as classroom and practical training options.

“Enhancing the skills of the future workforce is the primary motto of this initiative. Collaborations like this will help shape a high-quality professional workforce in future. Our culture of skill development and safety standards will empower them,” said Garg.

This is the 4th ITI in Odisha which has signed the MoU with TPSODL. Earlier, the company signed the agreement with ITIs at Berhampur, Hinjilicut and Rayagada.

Niyati Pattanaik, Director, Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) department signed the MoU on behalf of the department. Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of SSEPD and Bishupada Sethy, principal secretary of the department were present.

As per the MoU, BMVSS will provide services of artificial limbs for 5 years to the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). BMVSS is the main body of Jaipur Foot which is produced with indigenous technology. It is the world’s largest organisation for rehabilitation of PwDs and has rendered over 2.2 million services.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said his department and BMVSS will collaborate in Public Private Participation (PPP) mode to provide Jaipur Artificial Limbs/Callipers from permanent centers, camps or mobile workshop to PwDs in the state expeditiously.

A good number of PWDs have already been provided aids and appliances including Orthosis and Prosthesis by Biju Mahaveer Jaipur Food Centre, Khurda, he added.

Sethy said the Food Centre will continue to fabricate and fit Jaipur foot prosthetic limbs and callipers and serve as a base for undertaking camps and providing services in other parts of the state.

The event, which is dedicated to recognising and celebrating the state’s spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, will be marked by awards, felicitations and the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) with industry leaders including ICAI, NIF, ISBA and NRDC.

The event organisers have line up several sessions on various issues including Blockchain Ecosystem of India, Masterclass on Design Thinking, Masterclass on Role of Academic Institution & Incubators, Innovation, Technology, Intellectual Property, Institutional Support for Entrepreneurship, Success Stories and Ask Me Anything.

Highlighting the achievements of the Incubator of the Year, Supportive Incubator of the Year, and Emerging Incubator of the Year as well as commending successful incubators will be focus of the Utsav. Besides, the event will feature acknowledging externally funded startups, recognising top innovators from Odisha Startup Yatra and Odisha Startup Xpress, and rewarding the top ten innovators from each programme.

It will highlight student-led enterprises, women-led startups, and showcase the outstanding achievements of 122 Startup Odisha Grantees from 2022-23 and 51 Startup Odisha Grantees from 2023-24. Startup Yatra Booklets and Brochures will be launched and top 50 innovators from both Startup Yatra and Xpress felicitated on the occasion.

Notably, both Startup Yatra-2023 and Startup Xpress -2023 were inaugurated by the Chief minister on September 11, 2023. Covering over 200 colleges and 60 schools, these initiatives garnered a total participation of over 36,535 students. Both initiatives saw collection of over 4,436 ideas, surpassing the target of 3,500 ideas.

Pratap Keshari Deb, Minister of Industry, Energy, and MSME; Subroto Bagchi, Chief Advisor, Odisha government (Institutional Capacity Building); Pradeep Kumar Jena, Chief Secretary; Omkar Rai, Executive Chairman, Startup Odisha; Anu Garg, Development Commissioner and Saswata Mishra, Principal Secretary, MSME will participate in the event.

The MoU was signed by Ramashis Hazra, Director, AH & VS and Sunil Sinha, Senior General Manager, NDDB in presence of Ranendra Pratap Swain, Minister Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment, Fisheries and ARD.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said establishment of this unit will make Odisha self-sufficient in production of anthrax and Enterotoxaemia vaccine. Besides meeting its own requirement, the state will be able to supply the vaccines to other states, he added.

The project has been taken up as 5T initiative to transform the healthcare and disease management of livestock and poultry. At present, the existing satellite unit of OBPI at Berhampur is producing 22 lakh doses of Anthrax Spore Vaccine (ASV) and 14 lakh doses of Enterotoxaemia Vaccine (ENTV) annually in conventional method.

The Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) laboratory in compliance with WHO norms and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 of India will produce world class quality vaccine. Once operational, it will produce 2 crore doses of ENTV and 50 lakh of ASV vaccines.

NDDB will provide consultancy, supervisory services for setting up of the GMP unit, along with completion of the trial runs and final commissioning of the plant. Its construction has been taken up at a cost of Rs 52 crore and will be completed in 36 months.

Anu Garg, Development Commissioner, Suresh Kumar Vashisth, Principal Secretary, Fisheries and ARD, Sunil Sinha, Senior General Manager, NDDB, Sudhansu KK Mishra, CGM, NABARD also spoke on the occasion.

Minister for Sports and Youth Services Tusharkanti Behera and secretary Vineel Krishna from Odisha government and Keiji Kubota and Suparna Nanda from AM/NS India signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said, “We want to support our indigenous sports like Kho Kho. This partnership with AMNS to establish the Kho Kho high-performance centre (HPC) will set a new benchmark for support towards Indian sports.” Chairman of 5T and Nabin Odisha VK Pandian was present.

Under the agreement, Odisha will extend infrastructure support, while AMNS India has committed to provide experienced and dedicated coaches of Kho Kho to train the talented youths.

On the initiative of the government, several HPCs has been established at the Kalinga Stadium and the Kho Kho HPC will be an added facility.

Director General of GAA R K Sharma had a series of discussions with the Director General, IIPA S N Tripathi for establishing a collaborative framework between the two institutions that culminated into signing of this MoU in New Delhi on Friday.

The shared vision and persistent efforts of Sharma and Tripathi would enhance quality of teaching and learning experience of both the institutions. This will help build the capacity of training eco-system at all potential intersections and avenues in the State as well as nation. This collaboration will improve the knowledge, attitude and aptitude of public servants of the State and lead to constructive impact on the pace of good governance, an official release said on Sunday.

The MoU was signed by Amitabh Ranjan, Registrar, IIPA and Aradhana Das, Additional Director, GAA. The partnership will foster faculty exchange, joint research projects, and sharing of facilities, etc.

To provide wider exposure on Public Administration and Governance, and to build self-confidence of the young and budding administrators, GAA organised one-week long training programme of 127 OAS Probationers of 2020 (DR) batch during recently at IIPA.

This is for the first time OAS probationers visited Rasthrapati Bhawan, Parliament House, PM Sangrahalaya, War Memorial and National Museum, etc. Being facilitated by IIPA.

Chief Executive Officer of OSDA Reghu G. and CEO of SCMS Sanjay Sharma inked the pact in the presence of Chairperson of OSDA Alka Mishra and MD of Tata Steel Mining Ltd & Chairman of SCMS Pankaj Kumar Satija at World Skill Centre here.

Through this pact, districts-wise baseline survey and generating report for mining sector in Odisha an state-of-the-art ‘Centres of Excellences’ for futuristic skills/ skills in high demand for the mining sector shall be planned and created where local and project affected persons will be trained for gainful employment through Short-Term Training (STT) modules with collaboration of mining industries.

Tie-ups with global training partners/universities/academic institutions within India and abroad will also be conducted for global placement of trained and certified candidates. Besides, special modules in consultation with DTET, Odisha will be developed to fulfil the Industry requirements in the field of services and technical solutions.