Make in Odisha ends with promises of Rs 2 lakh crore investment

Make in Odisha conclave ended on Friday with promises of Rs 2.03 lakh crore investment and 1.4 lakh jobs for the state in 10 sectors. More than 80 companies have shown interest to invest.

Given by the response to the conclave, chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced to organize the conclave biannually to realize its dream of Vision 2025 that envisages to attract investment worth Rs 2.5 lakh and to create employment opportunity for around 30 lakh people in next 10 years. The next version of the conclave would be held 2018.

While traditional investors like Vedanta, Jindal and Tata Steel promised to invest about Rs 97,000 crore in mines & mineral sectors, labour-intensive sectors like IT & electronics, manufacturing, apparels, biotechnology, tourism, petrochemicals, chemicals & plastics and food processing saw promises of investment to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore.

On the occasion, Naveen announced to set up a convention centre and trade zone in the city which will be named after Utkal Gaurav (pride of Odisha) Madhusudan Das, who pioneered industrialization in Odisha.

As grounding of projects in Odisha is very slow despite a number of reforms, the chief minister announced to set up a special institutional mechanism to ensure smooth grounding of the investments in time.

Chief secretary Aditya Padhi said Odisha in last two days received proposals of a food processing plant by Adani Wilmar, a Rs 10,000-crore project from Essel Packaging and from Max Venture in petroleum & chemicals sectors. In tourism and hospitality sector, Nataraj Hotels, Haldirams and Emerald Group of Hotels of Dubai have evinced. Carnival Films has proposed to establish one multiplex at each of the district headquarters. A Film City that will house a film institute has also been proposed in the state.

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