Bhubaneswar: Odisha has been ranked as top performer in Start-up ranking at national level in 2018. The union Department for Promotion of Industry and International Trade has ranked the start-up performance of States in 2018.

Revealing this, the chief secretary Asit Tripathy Friday said the launching of Start-up in the State has increased by 84% in 2017-18 over 2015-16 against the national growth of around of 62%.

The State industries secretary, Hemant Sharma, said that so far 500 start-ups have been registered from among which 57% have been incorporated during and after the year 2017. Among the incorporated units, 150 are led by women which is around 30% of the total. Presently 13 incubator centres are operating in Odisha including IIT, Bhubaneswar, NIST, NIIT, KIIT, Ravi Shankar University .

Sharma said that the Odisha Start-up Policy has set the target to launch 1,000 start-ups by the end of March 2021.

The meeting committed Rs 100 crore to the State Start-up Fund over a period of three to five years as per requirement. The meeting also resolved to mobilise venture fund from private and corporate sector for constituting ‘Fund of Funds’ for start-ups in Odisha.

Agriculture principal secretary Sourav Garg, principal secretary finance Ashok Meena and KIIT Biotech Incubator head Prof. Mrutunjaya Saura were present in the meeting.