Odisha to draw Rs 2,000 crore investment for electronics cluster

Odisha hopes to draw Taiwanese investments worth Rs 2,000 crore for its ambitious electronics manufacturing cluster (EMC) planned at the Infovalley complex on the city's outskirts.

A delegation of Taiwanese investors led by David Shen, vice president, Wistron Corporation, Taiwan-based original design manufacturer, held talks with chief minister Naveen Patnaik, chief secretary G C Pati and other top state officials.

The team of investors also visited the sites of existing information technology (IT) park, Infocity and the Infovalley complex coming up on the city's periphery.

"We hope to pull investments to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore from electronics makers of Taiwan. The delegation today visited Infocity and the upcoming Infovalley sites where EMC is coming up. The investments are expected to be pumped into the EMC," said a top state official.

Wistron Corporation is an engineering based technical service provider delivering end to end product development services to leading companies worldwide. Its range of products include personal computers, servers and storage systems, networking products, display products and communication devices. It offers a comprehensive suite of design, manufacturing and after sales service support functions. With over $21 billion in revenue, Wistron has a pool of over 50,000 employees.

Both Wistron and US-based consulting firm M2i will park investments into the EMC for manufacture of consumer electronics products, stated a government release. It may be noted that the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) under the Union ministry of communication and information technology, in July last year awarded in-principle approval for the EMC project planned over 215 acres of land. The DeiTY has approved a grant of Rs 96.96 crore for the EMC. The proposed greenfield EMC cluster, located at Harapur, Gaudakasipur and Durgapur villages of Khurda district in Odisha, is expected to house over 100 electronics manufacturing units with an employment potential of 10,000-12,000 which will be a mix of skilled and semi-skilled personnel.