Rourkela: An exclusive hub for the promotion of entrepreneurial ability amongst SC and ST communities will come up here soon.

It will be set up at the National Small Industries Corporation, Rourkela branch.

"We are going to set up a hub shortly at Rourkela as the district and nearby areas have large tribal and SC population," said branch head of the NSIC, Bipul Bag. The NSIC works as the nodal agency for the hub. One such facility now functions in Bhubaneswar.

Bag believes Rourkela has the potential for establishment of such a hub.

"The whole idea is to meet the gap between the actual demand and real market scenario," he said.

The government provision stipulates that for any purchase order in public sector undertakings, 20 per cent should be procured from small and medium enterprises and of it, 4 per cent from the units promoted by SC/ST entrepreneurs."

From time to time, the NSIC, with the help of banks, PSUs and other agencies, will organise vendor development programmes.

"They will have a single-point registration scheme and will get registered with the NSIC free of cost," said Bag. "The entrepreneurs will get tender paper free of cost along with exemption from equal monthly instalment. If the entrepreneur's quotation is within 15 per cent less than the lowest tender, then the person will be given 20 per cent supply order. But, he will have to agree to supply the product at the lowest price," said the branch manager.

"The entrepreneur will also be given access to participate in two international and four domestic industrial fairs and all the costs will be borne by the government," said Bag.

Besides, there will be 90 per cent fee subsidy for these entrepreneurs for registration under the performance and credit rating scheme, which rates the financial health of the unit.

From time to time, they will be provided with business training.

"The participation in these trainings will be free of cost for the SC/ST entrepreneurs," said the branch manager.