Odisha plans 50,000 acre land bank for industries

With land acquisition posing a major hurdle in rapid industrialisation, plans are afoot to develop a land bank of at least 50,000 acres as a key initiative for development of industrial infrastructure in Odisha.
The Industries department along with the Industrial Development Corporation Limited (IDCO) and Industrial Promotion and Investment Corporation of Odisha Limited (IPICOL) has been directed to carry forward the initiatives in a time bound manner, an official said today.
Meanwhile, according to an official release, Chief Secretary G C Pati, while reviewing the activities of Industry Department at a high level meeting yesterday, directed the officials to develop a land bank of at least 50,000 acers for public and industrial purposes.

The department has also been asked to work out definite work strategy for land acquisition in the light of the new Land Acquisition Act, it said.
Stressing on streamlining of single window mechanism, Pati directed that IPICOL single window meetings be held more frequently to address the pending issues of cleared proposals.
The chief secretary has sought focus on development of downstream and value addition industries in clusters.

He indicated that all the steel plants should be asked to promote downstream industries and at least 25 per cent of the steel produced in Odisha should be put to value addition in downstream industries, it said.

The department has been asked to deploy dedicated teams for each industrial cluster with firm date lines for milestones to be accomplished.
Odisha has been one of the top three states which attracted investment in the last decade. Capacity addition in various key sectors in the last decade has ranged from 3 to 12 times, it said.
At present IDCO is facilitating around 226 industrial projects in the state. Around 106 industrial estates/parks have been initiated.
The industrial parks like Infovalley-IT & ESDM Park Bhubaneswar, Electronic Hardware Manufacturing Park Bhubaneswar, INFO park, Bio-Tech Park Bhubaneswar, Aluminum Park Angul, Mega Food park at Rayagada, Plastic Cluster at Balasore and Paradeep, Sea Food Cluster at Deras, Kalinganagar Steel Hub, PCPIR, Paradeep and Special Investment Region at Dhamara have been launched, it said.