Naveen vets 11 large industrial projects

The mega steel project proposed by Posco was conspicuously missing in the agenda of review of large industrial projects by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, here.

Patnaik, who took stock of major industrial projects, gave the biggest FDI project a skip at a time when speculation on its possible exit has gained ground.

"The Posco project was not discussed at the meeting. We reviewed the status of many projects ranging from auto park to plastic park. Issues relating to forest clearance, water availability, land bank and land alienation figured at the meeting," said industries minister Debi Prasad Mishra.

Projects proposed by Aditya Aluminium, Sesa Sterlite, Lanco Power and Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) came up for review.

Investments worth Rs 2.15 lakh crore have grounded in Odisha from industries that have signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government.

The state government has signed MoUs with 93 players with steel sector leading the pack at 48. Other MoUs include 28 in the power sector, three in aluminium, four each in cement and ports and the rest for creation of downstream units.

At the meeting, Patnaik also stressed on expediting the roll out of Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR), 2015.

"The IPR would mainly focus on employment generation and value addition," said the industries minister.

The IPR aims at a multi-pronged approach for industrial promotion by providing infrastructure support, institutional support and pre and post production incentives.

It strives to strengthen the nodal agency for investment promotion - Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Ltd (Ipicol) to function as an effective one stop shop for investors.

Ipicol would develop and implement a web-based system to facilitate investment clearances in a time bound manner. There will also be a facility for e-filing of combined application form (CAF) by investors, e-payment of processing fees and virtual single window interface between investors and different clearance authorities. The business friendly steps are to be put in place by the end of 2015-16, according to the draft IPR, 2015. Also, Ipicol would set up a GIS based comprehensive industrial data bank by engaging a professional agency.

Six months after the IPR 2015 comes into force, the industries department would initiate deployment of a web enabled platform for facilitating all statutory approvals applied through CAF.

The draft IPR says the existing single window clearance mechanism will be made more effective so that most of the clearances are accorded at the time of approval of projects.