Odisha to roll out defence manufacturing policy

Odisha is planning to roll out a defence manufacturing policy in the next three months, an official said on Monday.

"We see immense potential for defence and aerospace manufacturing. In fact, we are planning to come up with the defence manufacturing policy in the next three months," the Department of Industries' Principal Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said.

Odisha has been a leader in metals production and was now focusing on ancillary and downstream industries which could be beneficial to areas like defence and automotive, Chopra said.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's government has also been focusing on chemicals and petrochemicals, textiles and apparel, agro and sea food processing, electronics manufacturing and tourism, according to the official.

Odisha, which claims that cost of doing business in the state is 10-20 per cent less than its neighbouring states, remains bullish on the petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals investment region at Paradip, national investment and manufacturing zone at Kalinganagar and electronics manufacturing cluster in Bhubaneswar.

The state is also aspiring to be a major coastal economic zone with a coastline of 480 km, Chopra said.

With the advantage of strategic locations, Odisha has also narrowed down its focus on the logistics sector.

"We are trying to give logistics a status of industry to promote private logistic parks in the state. For which we may have to amend the existing policy to give the logistics sector a status of industry," Chopra said.

He also said the state has been making efforts to bring investments from automotive players but it "has not made much headway".

Odisha has set a target to attract 2.5 lakh crore investments with an employment of 30 lakh new jobs by 2025.

--IANS

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