State governments are often biased AGAINST local companies; policies needed to promote start-ups and home grown entrepreneurs
ADMINISTRATION & REPs, Invest Bhubaneswar, Invest Bhubaneswar, TIE Odisha Chapter October 3rd. 2010, 10:08pmFollowing is an excerpt from a Business Standard report in sify.com.
The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), which is going to start its Orissa chapter soon, has recommended a slew of measures to the Orissa government to give the much needed fillip to entrepreneurship in the state.
TiE has suggested the state government to set up an incubation centre and also put in place a Seed Fund to promote entrepreneurship in a big way.
"I had discussions with the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on creating a conducive atmosphere for entrepreneurship. What we have suggested is that the state can set up an incubation centre for the first generation entrepreneurs and this centre has to be run by competent professionals. Moreover, a Seed Fund has to be created by the state for funding the entrepreneurial ventures", Venkatesh Shukla, member of the board of TiE told Business Standard.
The state government also needs to rope in Non-Resident Oriyas settled overseas to lend their expertise to the upcoming entrepreneurs in the state, Shukla, who visited the state recently, said.
"What I also emphasized during my talks with the Chief Minister that there is an institutional bias against the start-ups and home grown entrepreneurs and this mindset has to be changed as small businesses create nearly 80 per cent of the jobs. For instance in procurement of IT hardware, a level playing field needs to be created for the local entrepreneurs so that they are not eliminated at the pre-qualification stage", he added.
Shukla pointed out that the rules and procedures for the small businesses and the start-ups need to be eased as any FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) no matter how massive it is, can bring sustainable development for the society.
Venk Shukla in other places has given example of what he refers to as "institutional bias against the start-ups and home grown entrepreneurs". I can not locate his exact writing in the subject now, but what he refers to is that in many government tenders there are often requirments that an applying company need to satisfy and such requirement often are such that the local start-ups and home grown entrepreneurs do not satisfy.
As a result two things are happening:
(i) Local start-ups and home grown entrepreneurs are often left behind.
(ii) Corruption creeps in when someone in the decision making decides to favor a local start-up and/or an home grown entrepreneur.
In contrast, in the US various authorities (cities, states, etc.) officially set aside certain percentage of their tenders for business owned by special groups, such as small businesses, minorities, women-owned etc. That way one can legally favor and promote local start-ups and home grown entrepreneurs.
When giving big contracts the authorities may also require that sub-contracts of certain size must be given to home grown entrepreneurs. This is also done in various US jurisdictions. Following are some links that may be useful to look at:
- Maryland small business reserve program: https://www.smallbusinessreserve.maryland.gov/faq/index.cfm.
- USDA subcontracting program: http://www.dm.usda.gov/smallbus/subcontracting.htm.
- US Department of Transportation subcontracting initiatives: http://www.osdbu.dot.gov/Procurement/subcontracting.cfm.