Naveen to review progress of industries in January

The Orissa government has decided to review the progress of various industries in the state. It will hold discussion with industries pertaining to employment generation, promotion of ancillary and downstream industries, efforts made for skill development and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities among others.

The scope of review will include the companies which have signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government and the non-MoU companies.

Initially, the chief secretary will discuss the industrialization issues at a meeting to be convened within a week.

This will be followed by a review of the progress of all industrial projects in the state by chief minister, Naveen Patnaik in January.

“The discussion will be held with all the industries pertaining to the employment generation, promotion of ancillary and downstream industries, skill development and CSR among others.

A meeting at the level of chief secretary’s level will be held this month and the chief minister will take stock of the situation in a meeting in January next year”, Saurabh Garg, secretary , industries, Orissa government told Business Standard.

Since the pace of implementation of industrial projects in the state has been slow, the government wants to expedite the process.

As a measure in that direction, it has sought information pertaining to the progress of the projects and problems encountered by them.

Meanwhile, the state government has constituted a Task Force in the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) to look into the progress of various projects periodically and sort out their problems.

The Task Force is headed by secretary, industry department. The chairman-managing director, Ipicol, managing director, Idco, director of industries and representatives from the revenue, water resources, forest and environment department, Gridco, Orissa State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB), directorate of factories and boilers have been included as members in it.

The Task Force has started holding its meeting at Idco every Saturday with 3-4 industries being invited to present their grievances.

Even the non-invited companies can meet the Task Force and present their problems, sources added.

It may be noted, the mega projects in the state have not been able to take off due to factors like resistance to land acquisition by locals, absence of state support for land acquisition, delay in water permission and grant of mining lease among others.

The chief minister was also criticised for not doing enough to push the industries in the state.

In this backdrop, the proposed review meeting by the chief minister is expected to help in solving problems faced by industries.