Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi Saturday launched the Odisha chapter of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), an initiative supported by NITI Aayog to promote women-led entrepreneurship in the state.
Launching the platform at the ‘Udyami Odisha MSME Programme’ organised on the occasion of International MSME Day, Majhi said the initiative would strengthen women’s economic leadership by providing them with access to finance, mentorship, marketing support and skill development.
“This is a grand campaign of women’s economic leadership in the development journey of Odisha,” the chief minister said.
“Our goal is to create such an Odisha where women will not only seek jobs, but will also create jobs, will not only be consumers of various products, but will also create the products themselves, they will not only be partners in development, but will also take the lead in development,” he said.
Majhi also launched the one-year action plan of the WEP and highlighted the success of the state’s ‘Subhadra Yojana’, claiming that more than one crore women had been empowered under the scheme and were moving towards self-reliance.
According to a statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), data from an IIM Sambalpur, SBI and AI Voice Bot survey showed that the share of women-run enterprises in Odisha had increased from 25 per cent to 53 per cent, while the average bank deposits of beneficiaries had risen by Rs 6,887.
The CMO said the WEP would bring together Mission Shakti, the MSME department, Startup Odisha, banks and industrial institutions to provide women entrepreneurs with financial assistance, marketing support, mentorship and skill development.
Describing the MSME sector as the backbone of Odisha’s economic growth, Majhi inaugurated a rice milling cluster built at a cost of Rs 24.18 crore in Balasore to promote rice bran oil production and laid the foundation stone for a Rs 17.70-crore Rasogola Cluster at Pahal near Bhubaneswar to boost production of the traditional sweet.
He also inaugurated two multi-product MSME parks at Barpally in Ganjam district and Kesinga in Kalahandi district, each built at a cost of Rs 10 crore.
The chief minister said engineering, printing and packaging, and cashew clusters would also be launched in the coming days and that one multi-product MSME park was being developed in every district.
More than 4.32 lakh MSMEs in the state have benefited from the combined efforts of the Centre and the state government, he said, adding that the sector would play a key role in achieving Odisha’s target of becoming a USD 500-billion economy by 2036.
NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Ashok Kumar Lahiri, who attended the event, said Odisha had emerged as a “rising star” with a high growth rate and topped the NITI Aayog Fiscal Health Index 2026 due to investments in health and infrastructure.
Deputy Chief Minister Parvathi Parida said the launch of the WEP marked the beginning of a new chapter for women entrepreneurs in the state.
PTI
