Odisha unveils new Industrial policy to attract investments

Odisha could be an early beneficiary of Narendra Modi government's efforts to make states compete with each other by improving ease of doing business to attract investments in key industrial sectors.

Navin Patnaik, Chief Minister Odisha, today announced the state's new industrial policy, Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR-2015) that addresses most of the problems identified by the central government as harming investment interests in the country.

In addition to the focus on 'ease of doing business' framework, the policy incentivises new ventures that are less dependent on mining and mineral resources while being employment-intensive.

"While mines and minerals will continue to be in focus, we are confident that the new policy initiatives will usher in new investments in the manufacturing sector in the State and make Odisha a destination of choice for both domestic and international investing communities." Patnaik said.

Auto components, ancillary and downstream industries, chemicals and petrochemicals, electronics system design & manufacturing (ESDM), food Processing, IT/ITeS, plastics, and textiles are among the new focus areas.

The policy aims at enhancing the manufacturing sector contribution to 15 per cent of the State's GDP by 2019 from the current 9 per cent, resulting in an additional employment opportunity for more than three lakh people, Debi Prasad Mishra, state industries minister said.

IPR 2015 also offers employment-based incentives-a point highlighted by Prime Minister Modi-to prospective investor.

Other incentives include grants for private sector investments in both greenfield and brownfield industrial infrastructure, power tariff subsidy, training subsidy, capital investment subsidy, reimbursement of value-added tax, stamp duty exemption, and concessional land cost for investments in specific sectors. The policy also provides for additional incentives to anchor units. Plans to set up an infrastructure development fund with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore for developing external infrastructure services has been announced.

The government has also decided to develop a land bank of 75,000 acres, to ease the land acquisition problem for the industries. "With industry specific technical and managerial manpower, competitive labour wages, 24X7 power supply with attractive tariffs, coupled with presence of Paradip Port as a gateway to the ASEAN region, Odisha is uniquely placed to attract substantial investments in the focus sectors", an official statement said.

(The correspondent is on a state government sponsored visit)