Bhubaneswar: Amid the doom and gloom of Covid-19 last year, the state witnessed the emergence of new entrepreneurs even as pay cuts and layoffs had already started haunting people.
Data from the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs claimed that when Covid cases remained high, more number of registrations of companies and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) started coming up. However, when the cases dipped, the enthusiasm for entrepreneurship also dwindled.
The data claimed that new registrations remained high in the second and third quarter of 2020 while the same started declining in the fourth quarter when the Covid cases started dipping and a sense of restoration of normalcy prevailed.
The ministry data claimed that while the registration of new firms and LLPs remained at 375 in August 2020 and 392 in September, the number came down to 259 in December. The registrations came down to two digits by January and February in the state but as soon as the virus cases again started rising in March 2021, a sudden jump of 368 new registrations was noticed then.
Data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare claimed that in September when Odisha reported the maximum of 392 company registrations, total Covid cases were also at the peak of 1,15,583.
In January 2021, when Odisha saw only 5,451 total monthly cases, the total registrations also stood at mearge 17.
On the other side, data from the Ministry of Rural Affairs also claimed that as compared to 2019, 2020 saw a massive jump in demand for daily wage jobs as many people wanted to work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
For example, the demand for MGNREGS jobs shot up from 7,49,296 in September 2019 to a whopping 20,49,355 in September 2020, hinting at large-scale joblessness in the informal sector and also among the migrants.
Industry experts, who have seen the impact of Covid-19 on the informal sector, validated the trend.
Jagannath Sahoo, president of Juggernaut Association of Entrepreneurs, said, “Indeed, we saw a surge in entrepreneurs in the state, especially in the healthcare sector and agribusiness during the pandemic as there is high demand in these sectors. However, due to the pandemic people preferred to do things in a more organised and legal way – through proper registration and due process – while several online services from the government also boosted firm registrations.”