Biswa Bhusan Mohapatra
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar: The fate of Biotech Park, an ambitious project of the state government, looks bleak as its developer seems to have lost interest in the project after almost six years of dilly-dallying.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation stone of the project October 25, 2009. In August 2010, state PSU Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) had signed a lease-cum-development agreement with Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), a Hyderabad-based firm, to develop the first Biotech Park in the state.
Idco and BBIL then formed a special purpose vehicle called Orissa Biotech Park Limited to build the park. The state government accordingly identified 64 acres of land at Andharua on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar for setting up the park.
The science and technology (S&T) department in collaboration with BBIL had initiated the project and the original plan was to develop the biotech-cum-IT park with an investment of `93 crore, said Umabhallav Mishra, director (technology) biotechnology, science and technology (S&T) department.
In 2013, the state government had allotted 30 acres in the first phase for the project and the Idco has developed roads, boundary wall, lights and water supply, Mishra said, adding, but later the government decided to hand over the project to Idco.
The construction work was supposed to start by March 2011. However, BBIL, which is the ‘anchor tenant’ of the park, has not even commenced construction work at the site.
As per the proposal, the park was supposed to have a Biotech Incubator (10 acres), a biotechnology corridor – modular labs (three acres), IT corridor (22 acres), administrative corridor (three acres) and an infrastructure and commercial complex (25 acres).
The S&T department proposed the incubation centre to provide practical knowledge to biotechnology students and to encourage students and entrepreneurs to start their small units in the park. The incubation unit, once commissioned, would be of immense help in the development of biotechnology to a large extent.
However, all BBIL did at the sprawling land that it got from the government was to build a boundary wall, which too has been broken at several places by marauding elephants living in nearby forests. The entire site, supposed to resemble a plush business district, now resembles a forsaken desert with little to no activity.
Even the foundation stone that was laid by the CM is now in ruins, with broken alcohol bottles strewn around the site, in testimony to the sheer apathy in which the company holds the project.
An increasingly impatient Idco had issued a notice to BBIL asking why the lease agreement should not be terminated. For some reason, the notice spurred the authorities of BBIL to request more time from the state government to get its project on track, to which the latter grudgingly agreed.
Officials of BBIL however had nothing to say in their defence when asked about the delay in pushing ahead with the project. “No comment,” is all what this reporter got from BBIL project in-charge A Arunachalam, when asked about why things were not falling into place for so long.
“The state government has given a second chance to the company. It had proposed to set up a vaccine manufacturing plant in the park, and has ensured us that it would complete the project by October 2016,” a senior Idco official told Orissa POST.
If the company does not complete at least the infrastructure work by the deadline, no more chances will be given to it and the lease agreement would be scrapped and a hunt would begin for a fresh partner, the official warned.