Good Initiative: Utkal Alumina’s Project Udyamee helping unemployed to become self employed
By Nalini Sahu
Bhubaneswar/Tikiri, Feb.8: Utkal Alumina International Limited, a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries Limited of the Aditya Birla Group, has launched Project UDYAMEE in collaboration with the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India as part of its unrelenting efforts to provide self-employment opportunities to rural youths (EDII).It has set up a Rural Business Incubation Center at Tikiri and promoting youths entrepreneurs in non-farm and agri-allied sector both at Kashipur of Rayagada and Thuamul Rampur of Kalahandi Odisha. The facility is offering local potential young people a complete solution for starting their own venture. Project Udyamee offers services such as counselling, business planning, market facilitation, financial linkages, subsidy/scheme linkages, and market mapping.
By promoting the start-up ecosystem in the rural tribal hinterlands, this creative and special project is advancing the national agenda of “Atma Nirbhar Bharat. “UDYAMEE works in a multi-stakeholder manner to support the state’s government ecosystem of MSME, SMEs, OLM, etc. while bringing the plan to realization on the ground for a sustainable outcome.
Over the course of a year and a half, the project was effective in developing 133 young local entrepreneurs who went on to start their own enterprises, employing further 136 people, and provide them with a means of living by providing indirect livelihood. The average monthly income earned by each entrepreneur is Rs. 10,120/- while the cumulative income earned as on 31st Jan 2023 is Rs. 79.31 lakhs.
To achieve these milestone, Utkal Alumina has extended Rs. 25.08 lakhs as seed fund capital directly to the entrepreneurs while entrepreneurs have invested Rs.65 lakhs from their own contribution and Govt. has released Rs. 30.50 lakhs under PMEGP and Rs. 1.5 lakhs under OLM.
Utkal Alumina has received admiration from Sri. Bikash Chandra Bain, GM RIC, Rayagada, for putting such an innovative initiative into practice that is creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem in this tribal area. He urged other corporations to start similar innovative projects in their respective fields. Further he went on saying that I’m confident that “Project Udyamee” will foster the development of first-generation business owners as well as equip them to take on larger start-ups under MSME and PMEGP.
The unit head and president of Utkal Alumina, Sri Mazhar Beig, has shared that the greater goal of Utkal is to develop the local economy, in order to transform this tribal hinterland into a sustainable self-sufficient community. He said that Project Udyamee would become the ideal option for young unemployed youth, Migrant worker, and aspiring existing business owners of these two aspirational districts like Rayagada and Kalahandi, to become self-sufficient right here at home. He stressed that we at Utkal are committed to changing the economic landscape of this area with this project.
