CCI urges Odisha to form monitoring group

The Cabinet committee on infrastructure (CCI) that took stock of the progress achieved in 49 projects in Odisha has urged the state government to form a project monitoring group (PMG) at state level to oversee small investment projects.

An inter-ministerial team of the central government led by Anil Swaroop, additional secretary, Cabinet secretariat reviewed projects across sectors like steel, power, coal, mining, petroleum & natural gas and road transport & highways in the presence of chief secretary J K Mohapatra and other top state officials.

This is the third such review aimed at fast tracking various pending clearances and approvals for the projects.

Projects that went under the scanner included the smelter plant of Aditya Aluminium Ltd, proposed expansion of Vedanta Aluminum's Lanjigarh refinery, Paradeep refinery and Paradeep-Ranchi-Raipur pipeline of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), power plants of Lanco Babandh, Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd (JITPL) and KVK Nilachal Power and steel projects proposed by Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL), Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd, Visa Steel and Essar Steel.

The central team also vetted the progress of rail link projects like Paradeep-Haridaspur, Talcher-Bimlagarh and Angul-Sukinda.

The status of coal to liquid project proposed by Jindal Synfuels Ltd, a fully owned JSPL subsidiary and a few open cast coal mining projects of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) were also reviewed at the meeting.

This is the third such review by the Cabinet secretariat's PMG. The PMG had earlier reviewed the progress of the key infrastructure projects in the state in September and November last year.