Odisha Approves 4 Proposals With Investment Of Rs 348.5 Cr

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Tuesday approved four investment proposals worth Rs 348.5 crore, which will help create employment opportunities for 6,000 people.

The proposals were approved in the State Level Single Window Clearance Authority (SLSWCA) held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi.

The projects mainly in pharmaceuticals, textiles, downstream industries in metals and minerals sectors would create employment opportunities for more than 6,000 people.

Principal Secretary Industries Sanjeeb Chopra outlined the investment proposals for discussion.

The approved project includes a Kolkata-based pharmaceutical company, who proposed to set up intravenous fluids production unit at Ramdaspur in Cuttack district with an investment of Rs. 64.95 crore.

The plant will create direct and indirect employment for 365 people. This will be the first such manufacturing unit in the pharmaceutical industry of Odisha.

The Angul Aluminium Park being developed as an exclusive state-of-the-art industrial park for ancillary and downstream industries for alumina and aluminium received a big boost with two investment proposals being approved by the SLSWCA.

The first one was from a leading Mumbai-based manufacturer of aluminium conductors to set up a greenfield manufacturing unit at the Angul Aluminium Park with a capacity of 40,000 metric tonnes per annum.

 The investment outlay was Rs 56.3 crores with employment potential for 200 people.

The second proposal for the Angul Aluminium Park was from a Rajasthan-based cables company, which proposed to establish a 30,000 metric tonnes per annum  manufacturing plant to produce aluminium conductors at an investment outlay of Rs. 50.30 crores with employment potential for 130 people.

The 300th proposal received by GO-SWIFT from a leading Kerala-based apparel manufacturer, a few days ago, was also approved. The leading exporter has committed to invest Rs 177 crore to set up a unit for knitting, fabric processing and garment manufacturing at Tata Steel’s SEZ at Gopalpur in Ganjam district.

The project will create employment opportunities for over 5,000 people, with a majority of them being women.

With the objective of attracting 2.5 lakh crore of fresh investments and generating 30 lakh job opportunities as part of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Vision-2025, the Odisha government is diversifying and broadening the state’s industrial development across the focus sectors.

Odisha’s investor-friendly policies and the development of world-class infrastructure have received very positive feedback from investors across the country as Odisha has been able to create an ideal business ecosystem for various sectors to flourish in the state.

Over the last three years, the state government has embarked upon the implementation of a Business Reforms Programme to make it easier for companies to set up and operate in the state following which Odisha has been recognized as an ‘Achiever’ in terms of implementation of business reforms with 92.09 percent score in the Business Reforms Action Plan rankings of 2017.

Subsequent to the ‘Make in Odisha Conclave 2016’, the first groundbreaking ceremony was held in November last year for 15 manufacturing units which grounded investments worth Rs 11,690 crore with scope to generate 8,187 jobs.

The second groundbreaking ceremony in June, 2018, witnessed inauguration of seven manufacturing units and groundbreaking of 12 units with cumulative investment grounded at Rs 2,675 Crore. This will create 8,953 jobs. The second edition of the biennial ‘Make in Odisha Conclave 2018’ has been scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar from November 11-15 this year.

Worth mentioning, ASSOCHAM has ranked Odisha as the number one state in terms of investment implementation rate and the state is consistently ranked among the top 3 states in terms of live manufacturing investments in India. Odisha has registered a GSDP growth rate of 7.94 percent in 2016-17, surpassing the national growth rate of 7.1 percent.