Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 21: As the state witnesses renewed interest from corporates to invest in various mineral and non-mineral sectors, a land bank of around 10,000 acres has already been readied by the government to avoid any land acquisition related issues, sources in the know said.
As per highly placed government sources, the state government seeks to avoid any friction with the local people with regard to land acquisition which it had seen in many instances for setting up mega projects.
Notably, the state has attracted an investment commitment to the tune of around Rs 70,000 crore from various corporate houses in the recently concluded Make in India week.
These proposed investments include an alumina refinery by L&T, expansion by NALCO, food processing and hospitality projects by ITC, expansion of GMR’s power plants and petrochemical downstream projects by IOCL among others.
Given the opposition seen in proposed mega steel projects of Posco, ArcelorMittal along with couple of other projects, the state government has learnt its lessons and since drew up a plan to create a land bank for industrial projects.
Earlier, state Industries minister Debi Prasad Mishra had said that the state government had identified 2.37lakh acre of land in eight clusters across the state under Land Bank scheme to facilitate industries with lands for expeditious grounding of their projects and attract more global investors.
Initially, collectors of these eight districts have been issued direction to acquire 75,000 acre of government land and 3,776 acre of private land in first phase, he had said.
With the slowdown in commodity market, the state government is now focusing more on non-mineral sectors to attract investment. Sources said land bank of 10,000 acre will definitely help in creating a right climate of investment in the state along with attracting more investment.