Bhubaneswar: For a group of students from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, academic pursuit and entrepreneurship go hand-in-hand.

An innovative start-up by a group of BTech students in apparel sector, especially in the T-shirt segment, is fast emerging as a success story.

The start-up - Ovotees - founded by Abhijeet Sahoo and Biswojeet Kiro, third-year students of NIT, will turn one-year-old next month.

Their T-shirts with novel printing emblems have won them many accolades. Their clients include more than a dozen major institutes and five corporate houses in the state.

The enterprising start-up venture had a humble beginning with a seed capital of Rs 50,000. In less than a year's span, the monthly turnover has soared between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh.

"Everything was being done on an experimental basis. But, our hard work has made it a success," said Sahoo.

"Our start-up was linked with textile and printing engineering. We are from other engineering branches. But, the craze of innovative T-shirts and their growing demand among the youths made us take the leap in garment segment," he said.

The idea of opening a garment start-up had struck the youngsters on 2016. They ventured into the sector after a lot of technical fact-finding and research. Their project finally took off in March 2017.

"At present, we are procuring T-shirts from other vendors. In future, we are planning to have our own set-up in Rourkela. We are going for printing which will last for long."

"In usual T-shirts, the prints lose their sheen very soon. The kind of printing technology that we are using now will help the print stay for long. We have started illumination printing by using radium and LED lights which can glow at night. These are washable as well," said he said.

"We are now going for nano-technology in printing, which will ensure that the shine or glow is never lost. At the same time, those printings will not have any harmful effects on the users' skin," said Kiro.

"Our start-up is focussing on 8-10 printing technologies," he said.

Rajiv Panda, professor in charge of the Foundation for Technology and Business Incubation at NIT, Rourkela, who mentored the students, said: "Innovations are of three types - cost, process and technology. If you provide same product at much lesser cost, it can be called innovation. The cost at which these students are making products with lasting impression will help them grow in the market."

The incubation unit gives space and technology to the NIT alumni and outsiders to come up with new start-ups free of cost. The faculties also guide the innovators. There are 22 start-ups operating at the unit at present.