Liftup Odisha
Accelerating The Development Of Smaller Towns In Odisha
Odisha’s economy has done well for many years. Pre-Covid-19, Odisha’s growth rate was high than India’s for a decade. Odisha’s economy did shrink because of Covid-19 but less than India as a whole, and Odisha has bounced back better than India as a whole.
However, Odisha still has a way to go before it becomes a prosperous State. Per capita income in Odisha is below the Indian average, and people still leave Odisha to look for jobs in other parts of India. Odisha has to do something different if it wants prosperity for all its people.
Apart from promoting the rural economy, Odisha should proactively develop its smaller towns. As young Odias move out of villages, many of them should find it attractive to settle down in nearby smaller towns, instead of moving to larger, already congested larger cities. They will move to the smaller towns only if they have suitable jobs and a reasonable quality of life.
Fortunately, the Odisha government is already one policy that will help develop smaller towns. This is to promote Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), which are spread throughout the State, and not just in large cities.
Liftup India2047, our non-profit company that is under registration, will support the development of smaller towns in Odisha, along with Rajasthan and Odisha. We will ass more States later.
Initially, we will assist the existing MSMEs in selected smaller towns (population under 2 lakhs) in different parts of Odisha. Our selected towns will be “growth-ready,” meaning they meet our three objective criteria. First, they have adequate physical (road, rail), human (health, education), and digital infrastructure. Second, they have enough land and water for town expansion. Third, they have ongoing MSMEs with growth potential.
Later, we support entrepreneurs to set up new MSMEs in these towns. Our aim is to at least double, within about 7 years, the total output from all the MSMEs in each town, which will create a significant number of new reasonably paying jobs. And there will be good opportunities for self-employment.
Initially, we have selected Bhadrak, Bolangir, and Rayagada; later, we will to expand to additional smaller, growth-ready towns in Odisha.
Our second project to be implemented in smaller towns will bring Digital Technologies to these towns in an accelerated manner. This project, which is still in the concept development stage, will have an independent justification but we will take advantage of the synergies between the two projects.
Liftup India2047 consists of a group of motivated people of different backgrounds and ages who have come together as volunteers to promote India’s economic development. We are a new type of a non-profit group. We are production-oriented, inspired by successful non-profit groups such as Amul and SEWA.
Our work will be catalytic and facilitative. We will function as a “proactive helpdesk” assisting MSMEs with the financial, marketing, technical, and administrative/regulatory issues they face. We will “handhold” the MSMEs but not provide any resources ourselves. We will have adequate local capacity in each town, but bring in additional resources as needed.
We will help the MSMEs to do better by enabling them to take full advantage of existing government schemes for MSMEs. Further, we will bring in non-government State and national groups and people who want to help MSMEs.
In this way, we will help the existing MSMEs to grow by improving their financial strength, and assist interested entrepreneurs to set up new units.
In Odisha, by the end of August 2022, we will complete “a detailed ground reality assessment” and define “the initial activities of the helpdesk.”
We plan to begin full-scale implementation of the MSME project by the end of December 2022. After that, we will continue to promote MSMEs in Odisha. taking advantage of new opportunities as they arise. We expect to implement the Digital Technologies project in Odisha sometime on 2023. Overall our efforts to support the development of Odisha’s smaller towns will continue for years to come.