Areas of Support from Specialised Institutions

Different institutions specialise in different kinds of help, but together they cover every major need of an entrepreneur. The main areas of institutional support are:

1. Financial support. Providing capital through term loans (for buying land, building, and machinery), working-capital finance, refinance to banks, seed capital, and credit guarantees. Institutions such as SIDBI, the State Financial Corporations, IPICOL, and NSIC work mainly in this area.
2. Technical support. Advising on the choice of product, technology, machinery, plant layout, and production processes, and helping with quality and testing. SISI (the MSME Development Institutes) and DICs work in this area.
3. Managerial and training support. Conducting Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDPs), skill-training, and management-development courses so that entrepreneurs can plan, keep accounts, and manage their units. SISI and the DICs are active here.
4. Marketing support. Helping small units sell their products — through market surveys, exhibitions, buyer-seller meets, and by helping them supply to government departments under purchase-preference schemes. NSIC is the main marketing-support institution.
5. Infrastructure support. Developing industrial estates, industrial parks, and providing developed land, factory sheds, roads, power, and water. In Odisha this is done chiefly by IDCO.
6. Raw-material support. Arranging scarce, controlled, or imported raw materials and distributing them to small units on reasonable terms. NSIC provides such assistance.
7. Export-promotion support. Helping entrepreneurs sell in foreign markets — through information, documentation, participation in international fairs, and export guidance. FIEO is the apex body in this area. …