The National Stock Exchange is holding talks with the authorities of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for offering various courses in financial management and services and facilitating more small and medium enterprises to take the IPO route for raising funds for their Brownfield projects.

“We are trying to impress upon the MSEs to follow the Maharashtra model which was launched three years ago,” Chief Business Development Officer of NSE Ravi Varanasi told The Hindu on the sidelines of ‘Investor Fair’ organised here on Thursday. The Governments of Gujarat and Rajasthan bear 10% of expenses towards IPOs by SMEs subject to a maximum of ₹10 lakh. In Maharasthra, while 50% of allocation is made by the State government, the remaining is contributed by banks and financial institutions.

NSE created an autonomous body NSE Academy to offer various courses or prepare curriculum for States.

“In Tamil Nadu, we have tied up with the school board to introduce 25-hour curriculum for eighth and ninth class students. In Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Assam also such partnership has been introduced. For CBSE students from ninth to 12th standards, we are providing the syllabus for a vocational elective subject on financial markets and management,” Mr. Varanasi said.NSE has tied up with CBSE and the certificate is issued by NSE in addition to CBSE after its own evaluation. Every year, 25,000 to 30,000 students opt for the subject.Mr. Varanasi said through NSE Academy they were also conducting part and full-time courses in global financial management taking into consideration the requirements of the UK, the US and Singapore. The one-year course gives good scope for jobs in KPOs.

After NSE launched a platform to enable SMEs raise funds to meet their requirements, as many as 180 went public in a span of one year to one and half year. The criterion requires a turnover of ₹5 crore and consistently good track record for three years. He disclosed the SMEs had mobilised around ₹180 crore till date.

He said they would be launching a digital platform using artificial intelligence and machine learning-a learning mechanism from April in collaboration with US-based startup EdCast.