Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Janata Congress (OJC) on Friday questioned Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s ongoing UAE visit, saying that the state government is showing lantern in daylight over investment in Odisha.
The recently-floated regional party, led by former legislator Mohammed Moquim, raised the question as to whose interests the government was serving by going to Dubai to sign an agreement with a domestic company Adani.
OJC also demanded 70 per cent job reservation for Odias in private companies in the state.
OJC Media Cell chief Prashant Satpathy said the CM’s visit to Dubai to bring investment and the agreement of Rs 210,868 employment opportunities is creating doubt among the public.
“In the last two years, under the Utkarsh Odisha banner as claimed by the double-engine government, there were 890 projects and investment of Rs 20.90 lakh crore, but the truth is completely different from the government’s claim. The reality is, in the last 2 years and 3 months, work has started in 56 projects worth Rs 1.78 lakh crore, which is only 11 per cent of the total project amount,” Satpathy said at a press conference in Bhubaneswar.
The said projects aimed to create 12.90 lakh jobs, but as of today only 31,668 people have got employment, he noted.
Satpathy said as per the state government’s target, Odisha will get 2 billion US dollars of Foreign Direct Investment by 2029, while the reality is only 39 crore of foreign investment has come so far.
“In whose interest the chief minister had gone to Dubai spending hundreds of crores, leaving Bhubaneswar, to sign an agreement with a purely indigenous company Adani. The agreement signed in Dubai is an extended form of the agreement done in Bhubaneswar in July 2026 with Adani and IHC and for this, how justified is it to waste crores of public money in the name of an investors’ meet there?” the OJC leader asked.
Continuing its attack on the BJP dispensation, OJC remarked that several big companies have left the state after the saffron party came to power.
“How committed the double-engine government is to industrialisation in Odisha is evident from the exodus of big companies that have left Odisha in two years. The JSW EV factory which was said to invest Rs 40 thousand crore, which was to be set up near Kataka at Jagatpur and Paradip, has now gone to Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Similarly, Arcelor Mittal’s steel plant to be set up in Kendrapada with an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore has now been shifted to Visakhapatnam,” Satpathy said.
“The semiconductor project to be set up at Chhatrapur in Ganjam district by SRAM and MRAM at a cost of Rs 30,000 crore is now completely closed. Waaree Energy, which was to invest Rs 25,000 crore in solar projects, has closed its project,” he claimed.
OJC leaders alleged that the BJP has failed to fulfil its promise to revive different industries, including seven spinning mills in Odisha, OTM cloth mill etc. “Industrial units which were earlier running profitably in Odisha are now sick or closed due to lack of government incentives and due to various legal hurdles. The government is not paying as much attention to it as it should,” Satpathy said.
Like the Maharashtra model, at least 70 per cent of Odias should be given employment opportunities in private companies in Odisha, OJC demanded.
“While signing MoUs with private companies coming to invest in Odisha, the government should incorporate special provisions to ensure 70 percent employment for Odias and enact a specific law for this,” Satpathy said.
