Odisha’s odyssey: From nano unicorns to dream unicorns, the state goes on entrepreneurial trek

The nuts and bolts of various dimensions innocuously kept on display on Subroto Bagchi’s giant table are prized jewels for him. These tiny but crucial parts of Sukhoi fighter aircraft, made by students at the Central Tool Room and Training Centre in Paralakhemundi, a remote town in Southern Odisha, stand testimony to the Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA) chairman’s new campaign to build an aspirational brand called 'Skilled in Odisha'.

Bagchi, co-founder of Mindtree and a business author, is passionate about discussing his new pet topic -- the bottom of the pyramid and skilling the poor. His target is to skill 1.1 million kids in the 15-18 age group in the state.

“Three years back, a five-year plan was drawn to skill 11 lakh people by March 2019. We have successfully gone ahead with it, and just around 2.5 lakh people are remaining to be skilled. Skill training is imparted through various industrial training institutes (ITIs) and a large number of short-duration courses, run under the state and central government schemes,” he says.

Bagchi wants the conversation to be shifted from 'Skilled' to 'Skilled in Odisha'. His aim is to build a conversation across the country that the best of the skilled employees come from Odisha, whether it is carpenters, plumbers, waiters, drivers, technicians, welders or nursing assistants.

Nano unicorn

What India needs today are nano unicorns, tiny businesses run by skilled people, who will start generating employment for a few people around them. “When these nano unicorns scale up, the country will be out of poverty. Challenge is to tell these people not to get on to the job queue and get trained in entrepreneurship and get access to capital so that they can start their own ventures,” he says.

OSDA goes to skill development centres like ITI’s, asking teachers there to identify kids who have the traits to become an entrepreneur. “Each chosen student will undergo an immersive seven-day mini MBA (Master of Business Administration) to get an understanding of various aspects of fundraising, customer acquisition, scaling up, etc. The chosen ones get a seed capital of Rs 1 lakh to start their own nano unicorn.”

OSDA has already issued the Rs 1 lakh cheque to 57 of them. “Our goal is to create and support 1,000 such entrepreneurs by 2018-19 and 3,000 in 2019-20,” says Bagchi.

For instance, the 23-year old Kartikeswar Bhuyan has set up a nano business of tent and light decorations with the help of OSDA training. The former student of Cipet (central institute for plastic, engineering and technology) in industrial electrician is now running a successful unit, employing a couple of his friends. Similarly, the 21-year old Soubhagya Muduli, a diploma holder in plastic mould technology from Cipet, is now running a unit that makes plastic containers.

A panel headed by Gitanjali Mishra, a former banker, does interviews and picks the right candidates with some entrepreneurial spark. “Revenue generation now is not a criteria. We only look at the entrepreneurial idea and the potential to give employment to others,” says Mishra.

How important is skilling at the bottom of the pyramid?

Bagchi believes that if India is to be a truly developed country, ITI’s should be treated with the same respect that IITs in the country gets. “You can produce as many IITians as you want. But if you do not have skilled labour trained in ITI’s and similar institutes, Make-in-India is not going to happen.”

Last year, the apparel capital of India, Tirupur reported exports worth around Rs 30,000 crore, of the Rs 45,000 crore total output. “If you bought a Lee or a Tommy Hilfiger from abroad, chances are that they came from Tirupur. There are around 6,50,000 workers in Tirupur, half of which are migrants. And 50% of these migrant workers are from Odisha, mostly young girls,” says a proud Bagchi.

OSDA has also started an incubation centre for augmented reality and virtual reality at IIT Bhubaneswar.

“Skill is not celebrated in India. We need to change that if we were to create success,” Bagchi adds.

The juggernaut of skill development has just begun to roll in Odisha, slowly thundering through the countryside. Other states may like to take a note.