Bhubaneswar: A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, Tuesday, claimed that Odisha was able to achieve only 7 per cent of the targeted renewable energy production during 2017-18.
The CAG report on Compliance Audit for 2017-18 claimed that the projected capacity could not be achieved due to delay in land acquisition for the projects for 34 months (upto September 2018).
“In the Renewable Energy (RE) Policy of the state, it was targeted to add 2,750 mega watt (MW) RE capacity by 2022. Against this, RE capacity of the state stood at 195 MW at the end of 2018, which was 7.09 per cent of the target,” it said.
“Both OPTCL and OHPC agreed to permit installation of solar plant only for 6.2 MW. GEDCOL had neither taken steps to establish solar plants in the agreed locations nor had initiated action to acquire land at other suitable locations. As such, Central grant of Rs 38.10 crore remained unutilised for last three years (July 2018),” the report said.
The report also indicated how Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) was of little help for irrigation of the region. “In contravention to their own decision, WODC has allocated only 11.80 per cent of total outlay to irrigation sector during 2015-18 whereas other projects which were not critical to the development of the region, received 38.90 per cent of the total outlay,” it said.
It also added, “WODC had not identified critical gaps to prepare annual/ perspective plan, as required under the provisions of WODC Act. Projects were approved as recommended by MPs, MLAs, CEO and other members of WODC ignoring critical gaps,” it added.
The report also hinted how the development of Infocity-IT Special Economic Zone (SEZ) failed to live up to the expectations of the government.
The objectives of establishing IT-SEZ were to attract investment in IT sector, create 28,000 direct/indirect employment opportunities and achieve export turnover of Rs 6,600 crore by 2019. The report said only 50.92 acre out of 262.57 acre land could be leased out only to one business house i.e. 19.39 per cent of the total area.
“Against the target of registering export figure at Rs 6,600 crore, the same stood at Rs 508.18 crore (7.70 per cent). Only 1,520 employment avenues could be created (both direct and indirect) against the target of 28,000 (5.43 per cent),” the CAG report said.
