Bhubaneswar: Claiming that the state’s economy is on a higher growth trajectory as compared to the national scenario, the government Tuesday said it has set a target of attracting investments worth `2.5 lakh crore in six focus sectors to help achieve the goal of creating 30 lakh employment opportunities by 2025, as announced by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik a couple of days ago.
“We have created a roadmap for industrial development as reflected in our ‘Vision 2025’ document. To broad-base and diversify the industrial development in the state, we have identified six focus sectors – agro and food processing; ancillary and downstream in metal sector; chemicals, plastics and petrochemicals; electronics manufacturing and IT; textiles-apparel and tourism. Accordingly, we have set a target to attract investments worth `2.5 lakh crore in these sectors and create 30 lakh jobs by 2025,” said Industries Minister Niranjan Pujari to reporters as part of the media interaction programme of the government.
During the three investors’ meets organised at Mumbai, Bangalore and Bhubaneswar in 2016, the state has received 124 investment proposals worth `3,64,864 crore, he said. Of this, firm commitments for more than 50 per cent of the projects have been received – one of the highest and fastest conversion rates achieved by any state in the country, the minister claimed.
During the last three years, the Single Window Clearance Authority in the state has approved 102 projects with investments worth `1,67,284.63 crore having an employment potential of 1,12,532 jobs, Pujari informed the media, adding, the state is committed to approving ‘Green’ category projects within 15 days and ‘Other’ category projects within 30 days.
In 2016-17 fiscal, Orissa has registered a growth rate of 7.94 per cent in gross state domestic product (GSDP) surpassing the country’s GDP growth rate of 7.1 per cent, said the minister, adding the state is on the track of achieving double digit growth rate of 12 per cent by 2019-20.
On industrial infrastructure plans, he said master plans for National Investment & Manufacturing Zone, Kalinganagar, Dhamra Port-based industrial region and Infovalley have been completed. Master planning for Petroleum Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) at Paradip is underway and will be completed in three-four months.
Other mega projects like Plastics Park at Paradip, Seafood Park at Deras, Electronics Manufacturing Cluster at Infovalley and Aluminium Park at Angul are now ready for investments. Furthermore, new clusters are being developed at Chattabara, Jayamangal, Ramdaspur, Mundamba and Lahanga in the state to meet the requirements of the investors, the minister added.
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