Odisha blames opposition, Left extremists for slowing industrial growth

State government, industrial players facing hassles with respect to land acquisition

Faced with flak for undue delay in grounding of mega industrial projects, the Odisha government has passed the buck on the Opposition political parties, anti-industry groups and left wing extremists for the mess.

In a white paper released by its home department, the state government held these factors responsible for decelerating the pace of industrial development.

“Both the state government and the industrial players are facing hassles with respect to land acquisition. Opposition political parties and anti-industry pressure groups are inciting people against industrialization through various movements. This apart, the left wing extremists also have a hand in provoking people to take an anti-industry stand,” the white paper stated.

Stating that Odisha was on a progressive path on the industrialisation front, the paper said that many developers across sectors like steel, aluminium, power and ports had lined up projects for the state owing to its rich natural resources.

However, mega projects including those proposed by Posco and ArcelorMittal which between them envisaged an investment of around Rs 1 lakh crore, were fraught with trouble especially on land acquisition because of stiff protests at the ground level.

Though the state government claimed to have handed over 1,700 acres of land to Posco India, land buying activity for the project has been punctuated by protests. For ArcelorMittal, land acquisition still remains elusive.

Odisha had received investment proposals worth Rs 14.01 lakh crore from 427 developers. Of these, 235 proposals worth Rs 8.84 lakh crore have been cleared so far by the Single Window Clearance Authority and High Level Clearance Authority, the highest bodies to clear investments. The state government has signed MoUs (memorandum of understanding) with 93 players with investments valued at Rs 4.57 lakh crore.