Bhubaneswar: Odisha has emerged as the number one state in the country in project implementation and figured among the top three states in investment, industry minister Niranjan Pujari said.
Speaking to news persons at a press conference here during a work shop on GO-SWIFT to apprise the industry associations about the features of the portal, Pujari said Odisha today is the most preferred destination for investment.
The minister said out of the total ten per cent of the investment in the country 7.8 per cent attributed to Odisha due to major reforms initiated by the state government.
He claimed that the state had received 124 investment proposals worth 1.9 lakh crore after the investors meet held in Mumbai, Bangalore and Make in Odisha Conclave at Bhubanswar, and so far 76 proposals are in various stages of completion.
Pujari said many Japanese companies are keen to invest in Odisha after the investors meet in Japan.
The Japanese ambassador in India is scheduled to meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the industry minister in the second week of January for further discussions.
A plan is also on to invite some countries to participate in the next investors meet.
The minister said the Chief Minister had launched the first of its kind single window portal ‘GO SWIFT’ in November last with a vision to promote conducive business environment by bringing in transparency, improving efficiency and assuring time bound clearances to the investors during the entire investment cycle of their projects.
He said the portal has received tremendous response and 3,615 industrial units have come into the GO SWIFT fold within just 30 days of its launch.
The minister said GO SWIFT is the only one of its kind portal in the country and appealed to all companies from and outside Odisha to take its benefit.
He said the portal provided 33 services of 15 departments now and the government is planning to introduce more reforms and intensify the reach out activities within the country and abroad next year.
The industry minister said using the portal new industrial units can obtain all necessary information regarding investible projects, applicable incentives and clearances required through an interact tool called info-wizard, select industrial land on GIS based platform, facilitate online approval from the single window authority and land allotment from IDCO.
The existing industries, he said can apply to regulatory agencies for renewal of license, take advantage of risk based synchronised inspection, avail post land allotment services from IDCO, resolve issues with government departments and dovetail CSR activities.
New and existing industrial units can also apply for applicable incentives and get sanctions under the Industrial Policy Resolution 2015 using the portal.
He said a comprehensive query management system has been integrated with the single window portal which mandates that all queries sought by the approving officer will be raised only once within seven days from the date of submission of application.
Timelines have been integrated to gurantee that services are delivered in a time bound manner and various timelines has been fixed for various approvals.Any deviation from the timeline can lead to action against the authority concerned.
Industries secretary Sanjeev Chopra said with the launch of the portal, the state government is committed to reaffirm the state’s position as a leader in ease of doing business reforms. (PNN)