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Contradicting earlier speculation of slow progress between the state Government and ADGC on IT center in the state capital area, today “The Pioneer” reported that

“The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has evinced interest to set up an information technology centre in the city or its outskirts. The process to acquire the required 40 acres of land for the Dhirubhai Ambani IT Centre is on. After the ADAG submitted the proposal, the Orissa Computer Application Centre has forwarded it to the State-run Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO).”

It also added

“the representatives of ADAG have inspected three places in Jatni and two places in Khurda for identifying the land, according to IDCO sources.”

Daily Pioneer reporter Kahnu Nanda reports that situation is turning in favour of POSCO in the Kujang Block. The Article is reproduced below:

“Days after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik asserted that the mega greenfield steel plant by South Korean steel major Posco will be established at Kujang and that construction work would start from April 1, 2008, Posco has reiterated its commitment to the project.

An overwhelming section of people living in the proposed project site areas, including representatives of several political parties, social activists and local senior citizens, are moving fast to garner support for the project’s implementation.

Reports indicate that several meetings and campaigning has been held in project site at village level in the past week in a bid to woo the locals in the project’s favour.

Different project sympathisers have been organising these pro-Posco meetings and Ersama MLA and former Minister Damodar Rout has proposed to organise a mass public meeting in Balitutha Hat on October 27 just at a stone’s throw distance from the project opponents’ road block over Balitutha Bridge since September 24.

Sources said that a pro- Posco meeting was organised under the leadership of former PS member Jiban Lal Behera and the meeting was attended by most of habitants and discussed the Posco issues at length.

The senior villagers, attending the meeting too opined setting up of the project and unanimously resolve requesting the Posco authorities to reopen its closed Kujang office immediately.

Meanwhile, Ranjan Das a social activist and native of Polang, an affected village for the project, arranged a meeting in village on Tuesday in a move to garner support for Posco.

The Chief Minister’s endeavours to have a dialogue with project opposition groups had described a salutary effort while the villagers emphasised that the Posco authorities need to directly interact with the affected people for land acquisitions, Askhya Das, a villager revealed.

The political atmosphere in the project sites of Gadakujang, Dhinkia, Nuagaon, Chatua, Balitutha and Bamadeipur villages saw a startling incident on Tuesday when one Dhruba Charana Muduli, a social activist had called an all party meeting in Gadakujanga to discuss the Posco stalemate.

The meeting was attended by most of the members of different political parties of the locality excluding Leftists.

In the meeting a decision was taken to form an all party co ordination committee taking members from different political parties to hold dialogue with the State Government, the district administration and the Posco authorities to sort out the project obstacles, informed a member of a major political party.

Meanwhile, sources said that a similar type of meeting had been organised in Govindpur village under the leadership of Nirvay Samantray and project sympathiser Tamil Pradhan had conducted a meting in his Nuagaon village on Wednesday.

However, reports said that most of Posco supported leaders at the proposed project site villages have been organising meetings and campaigning to bring a pro attitude since the Chief Minister and Posco agreed for the project inception last week.

Ersama legislator Damodar Rout ,who was keeping distance from Posco related issues earlier has started organising mass contact campaigning with a message against anti -Posco sentiments in project site villages.

However, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) who is spearheading the anti-Posco movement since one year vowed to oppose the project tooth to nail and refused to act on the Chief Minister’s desire of a dialogue.

According to them the project would wipe out 11 villages and affect around 20,000 habitants therefore no industry should not be set up at the cost of agricultural lands that threatens to take away the livelihood of people.

Abhaya Sahoo, PPSS chairman slammed the State Government for being insensible towards the affected locals, and also threatened of not giving one inch of land for the Posco project. He blamed the local leaders for organising pro Posco meetings in their areas under the influence and getting financial supports from Posco.”

New Indian express reports that Orissa Stevedores Ltd (OSL) started the renovation of Gopalpur Minor Port and its expansion into an all weather port. Excerpts:

“This seasonal port work which was earlier managed by the State Government was entrusted to OSL last year to be developed into a full fledged, all weather port by OSL, on a build own operate share transfer (BOOST) basis for a concession period of 30 years.While the minor Gopalpur port was spread over 282.755 acres the planned all weather port will come up on 513.786 acres. As per the notification by the State Government the district administration has already initiated measures to hand over land to OSL besides leasing out some stone quarries.

As per the initial plans, the port would be developed in two phases at Rs 720 crore. The first phase of the project would involve upgradation and rehabilitation of the existing minor port at Rs 20 crore.

Phase II involves an investment of Rs 700 crore for the development of the port into an all-weather one. On completion of 30 years, the developed port will be handed over to the State Government. However, the private operator would also have to share its gross revenue with the State Government.”

See the complete article by an ISI professor of economics at http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071025/asp/opinion/story_8468453.asp. Following are some excerpts:

Ration shops are burning all over West Bengal. They are being attacked, looted and put on fire by groups of angry, disgruntled citizens, who seem to have decided that they have had enough. The upsurge has already exacted its toll and a few lives have been lost. Some have died in police firing. Others, comprising fair-price shopowners, who were unable to bear the fines and humiliation inflicted upon them by people’s courts, have committed suicide. One might see signs of a spontaneous revolt against the ruling Left in the string of riots or might detect the opposition marshalling its strength before the all-important panchayat polls next year. One might even smell Maoist provocation behind the sedition. But however political the riots might look on the surface, it is impossible to deny that without extreme economic hardship the people of rural Bengal, who have shown a traditionally high level of endurance, would not have resorted to such extreme measures. How acute are the hardships? What are the reasons behind them?

The problem essentially is one of hunger and starvation. …

In February 2007, the National Sample Survey had come out with a report on perceived inadequacy of food consumption in Indian households. …

Of the seventeen states considered in the table, West Bengal has the highest percentage of households (10.6 per cent) not getting enough to eat during some months of the year. The second is Orissa, with 4.8 per cent….

… Clearly, modernizing the trade in foodgrain cannot solve all the problems. Especially, it cannot solve the problems of those who do not have work and income for a significant part of the year. Indeed, a significant part of the foodgrain produced in the state is leaving its boundaries because the people within do not have enough money to buy food. So a longer-run remedy would be to create purchasing power within the state. This can be achieved only by promoting industrialization on a very large scale.

What is funny is that the CPI and CPIM leaders come to Orissa to preach their anti-industrialization message while favoring for industrialization of their home state. More funny is that many in Orissa look upto these CPI and CPIM leaders from outside state.

The following is extracted from an ndtvprofit.com report.

• The state government, Posco agreed to April 1 deadline as the date was significant for both Orissa and the steel major. It is observed as ‘Utkal Divas’ and also the anniversary of Posco, Lee said.
• During the discussion, Patnaik pointed out that 512 acres of government land had already been sanctioned to Posco, while 3,000 acres of forest land was cleared by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), official sources said.

  Posco required 4,004 acres near Paradip to set up its proposed 12 mtpa capacity steel mill which had been facing opposition from the local people. “Though land was ready for handover to Posco, this could not be done in the face of stiff opposition from the local people,” they said.

• Patnaik said the state government would complete hearing of all applications for Khandadhar mines in Sundargarh district by November, sources said.

  Orissa government had already recommended the name of the South Korean company for the Prospecting Licence (PL), they said.

• Patnaik urged Lee to immediately commence construction of transit accommodation for the displaced people and a training center for imparting technical education to local youths so that they could be provided with jobs in future.

Thanks to Manoj Padhi for pointing this out in Orissa Today. The following is from http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=31832.

The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for the National Policy on Rehabilitation and Resettlement, 2007, to replace the National Policy on Resettlement and Rehabilitation for Project Affected Families, 2003. A Gazette Notification will be issued shortly to bring into effect the new Policy.

The Cabinet also decided to bring a legislation on the lines of the new Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, and to suitably amend the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Necessary steps shall be taken in this regard as per the established procedure.

The new Policy and the associated legislative measures aim at striking a balance between the need for land for developmental activities and, at the same time, protecting the interests of the land owners, and others, such as the tenants, the landless, the agricultural and non-agricultural labourers, artisans, and others whose livelihood depends on the land involved. The benefits under the new Policy shall be available to all affected persons and families whose land, property or livelihood is adversely affected by land acquisition or by involuntary displacement of a permanent nature due to any other reason, such as natural calamities, etc. The Policy will be applicable to all these cases irrespective of the number of people involved.

The benefits to be offered under the new Policy to the affected families include; land-for-land, to the extent Government land would be available in the resettlement areas; preference for employment in the project to at least one person from each nuclear family within the definition of the ‘affected family’, subject to the availability of vacancies and suitability of the affected person; training and capacity building for taking up suitable jobs and for self-employment; scholarships for education of the eligible persons from the affected families; preference to groups of cooperatives of the affected persons in the allotment of contracts and other economic opportunities in or around the project site; wage employment to the willing affected persons in the construction work in the project; housing benefits including houses to the landless affected families in both rural and urban areas; and other benefits.

Adequate provisions have also been made for financial support to the affected families for construction of cattle sheds, shops, and working sheds; transportation costs, temporary and transitional accommodation, and comprehensive infrastructural facilities and amenities in the resettlement area including education, health care, drinking water, roads, electricity, sanitation, religious activities, cattle grazing, and other community resources, etc.

The benefits expressed in monetary terms have been linked to the Consumer Price Index, and the same shall also be revised suitably at appropriate intervals.

The Requiring Bodies shall be responsible for development of designated areas on the periphery of the project site, and shall earmark funds for the purpose of such periphery development activities.

A special provision has been made for providing life-time monthly pension to the vulnerable persons, such as the disabled, destitute, orphans, widows, unmarried girls, abandoned women, or persons above 50 years of age (who are not provided or cannot immediately be provided with alternative livelihood).

Special provision for the STs and SCs include preference in land-for-land for STs followed by SCs; a Tribal Development Plan which will also include a programme for development for alternate fuel which will also include a programme for development for alternate fuel and non-timber forest produce resources, consultations with Gram Sabhas and Tribal Advisory Councils, protection of fishing rights, land free-of-cost for community and religious gatherings, continuation of reservation benefits in resettlement areas, etc.

A strong grievance redressal mechanism has been prescribed, which includes standing R&R Committees at the district level, R&R Committees at the project level, and an Ombudsman duly empowered in this regard. The R&R Committees shall have representatives from the affected families including women, voluntary organisations, Panchayats, local elected representatives, etc. Provision ahs also been made for post-implementation social audits of the rehabilitation and resettlement schemes and plans.

For effective monitoring of the progress of implementation of R&R plans, provisions have been made for a National Monitoring Committee, a National Monitoring Cell, mandatory information sharing by the States and UTs with the National Monitoring Cell, and Oversight Committees in the Ministries/Departments concerned for each major project, etc.

For ensuring transparency, provision has been made for mandatory dissemination of information on displacement, rehabilitation and resettlement, with names of the affected persons and details of the rehabilitation packages. Such information shall be placed in the public domain on the Internet as well as shared with the concerned Gram Sabhas and Panchayats, etc. by the project authorities.

A National Rehabilitation Commission shall be set up by the Central Government, which will be duly empowered to exercise independent oversight over the rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected families.

Under the new Policy, no project involving displacement of families beyond defined thresholds can be undertaken without a detailed Social Impact Assessment, which among other things, shall also take into account the impact that the project will have on public and community properties, assets and infrastructure; and the concerned Government shall have to specify that the ameliorative measures for addressing the said impact, may not be less than what is provided under any scheme or programme of the Central or State Government in operation in the area. The SIA report shall be examined by an independent multi-disciplinary expert group, which will also include social science and rehabilitation experts. Following the conditions of the SIA clearance shall be mandatory for all projects displacing people beyond the defined thresholds.

The affected communities shall be duly informed and consulted at each stage, including public hearings in the affected areas for social impact assessment, wide dissemination of the details of the survey to be conducted for R&R plan or scheme, consultations with the Gram Sabhas and public hearings in areas not having Gram Sabhas, consultations with the affected families including women, NGOs, Panchayats, and local elected representatives, among others. Consultations with the Gram Sabhas in the Scheduled Areas shall be held as per the provisions of the PESA Act, 1996.

The Policy also provides that land acquired for a public purpose cannot be transferred to any other purpose but a public purpose, and that too, only with prior approval of the Government. If land acquired for a public purpose remains un-utilized for the purpose for five years from the date of taking over the possession, the same shall revert to the Government concerned. When land acquired is transferred for a consideration, eighty per cent of any net unearned income so accruing to the transferor, shall be shared with the persons from whom the lands were acquired, or their heirs, in proportion to the value of the lands acquired.

The entitled persons shall have the option to take up to twenty per cent of their rehabilitation grant and compensation amount in the form of shares, if the Requiring Body is a company authorised to issue shares and debentures; with prior approval of the Government, this proportion can be as high as fifty per cent of the rehabilitation grant and compensation amount.

One of the objectives of the Policy is to minimize displacement of people and to promote non-displacing or least-displacing alternatives. The Policy also recommends that only the minimum necessary area of land commensurate with the purpose of the project should be taken, and the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes should be kept to the minimum; multi-crop land should be avoided and irrigated land use should be kept to the minimum for such purposes. Projects may preferably be set up on wastelands or un-irrigated lands.

The Policy has been formulated after wide-ranging consultations with the concerned Ministries/Departments, the States and the Union Territories, the industry groups, persons/groups actively engaged in the field of R&R, and the public at large.

Following is an excerpt on this from a report in Business Standard.

GAIL India, the country’s largest transporter and marketer of gas, will diversify from its core business to invest in a fertiliser and chemical plant at Talcher in Orissa. The gas utility will form a joint venture with government-owned Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers (RCF) to set up the Rs 2,400 crore plant which will have a capacity to produce 2,940 tonne per year of urea, GAIL, CMD, UD Choubey said.

An agreement between GAIL and RCF will be signed soon, Choubey said.

“The equity structure is yet to be worked out. RCF will carry out a feasibility study on the integrated fertiliser and chemical plant,” Choubey said.

The plant will be fed with 7 million cubic metres a day (mcmd) of gas produced through the surface coal gasification process for which Coal India (CIL) will supply around 5,000 tonne of coal.

“We are in constant touch with CIL. They have in-principle agreed to supply the coal,” Choubey said.

Explaining the rationale behind diversifying into fertilisers, Choubey said that the trigger for the move was that the company wanted to increase its presence in the gas business in east India. “We have always been supplying gas to fertiliser plants. This is just a move forward,” Choubey explained.

TCS has a software development center in Bhubaneswar. Following is an excerpt from a report in livemint regarding TCS’s plan to establish a training center in Bhubaneswar.

TCS has a training centre for science graduates at Chennai, where it plans to increase capacity to be able to train 3,000 at a time. Besides, it plans to open four more centres at Assam, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar and Bhubaneswar to have an additional capacity of up to 5,000 at an investment of Rs400 crore.

“Scaling up to 30,000 at 10 centres is not a problem for us,” said S. Ramadorai, chief executive officer and managing director, TCS.

TCS, which reported Rs5,640 crore in revenues in the September quarter, spends 2% of its revenue on employee training.

Following are excerpts from a report on this in sify.com.

Stemcor India, which is setting up a Rs 1,500 crore iron ore pelletisation project in Orissa, achieved financial closure, securing Rs 960 crore debt with SBI Capital Markets as the lead arranger.

Stemcor India, a subsidiary of Stemcor, the London-headquartered $5 billion steel trading major headed by Ralph Oppenheimer, will fund the remaining Rs 540 crore through equity in setting up a 4 million tonne pellet plant in Kalinganagar.

This will be connected by a 220-km slurry pipeline to Barbil, in Keonjhar district, the heart of private iron ore mining in Orissa, where a beneficiation unit would be located.

Senior Stemcor India officials said that with the financial closure, the first tonne of pellets would be out in 2009.

Several steel companies, already in Kalinganagar or implementing projects, have submitted letters of intent to source raw materials from Stemcor.

The demand is such that the order book for at least 75 per cent of the projected capacity has already been secured.

The company plans to set aside 25 per cent of output to be placed in the spot market to benefit from rising prices of pellets.

Officials said that while the prices of pellets would be on a negotiated basis with customers, lump ore price charged by NMDC Ltd, the state-run mining major, would serve as a benchmark price for the domestic market.

Kalinganagar is the destination for many steel companies like Tata Steel, Visa Steel, Bhushan Steel, Jindal Stainless, Murugappa group and Maharashtra Seamless.

Many of these companies, which do not have mining linkages, are obvious customers of Stemcor pellets.

… In the domestic market, smaller non-integrated steel plants, which typically have blast furnaces but no iron ore plant or sinter plants and do not have resources to invest in pelletisation, would source raw materials from Stemcor.

Also, metallurgically, a combination of lumps and pellets fed into blast furnaces can increase steel production substantially. The Orissa beneficiation and pelletisation project is Stemcor’s second plant after a 6 million tonne plant in Tasmania.

In 2000, Stemcor had entered into a joint venture with Essar for a pelletisation plant in Vishakapatanam but later sold a 51 per cent stake to Essar.

Following is an excerpt from a Pioneer report.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has decided to open a hotel at the river mouth at Chilika Lake. The corporation has identified a patch of 500 acres required to set up the resort to which the State Government has agreed, according to official sources. Earlier local hospitality groups like Mayfair, Holiday Resort and Marrion had procured land to set up hotels, near the proposed project site of IRCTC. The river mouth of Chilika Lake is situated in Babhukundeswar in Puri district. Notably, Chilika is spread over a area of 11,000 sq km in Puri, Khurda and Ganjam district and is India’s largest lake , which attracts huge number of tourists and also birds.

Following is an excerpt from a New Indian Express report on this.

Hotel Hindustan International Group announced its arrival in the city with HHI Bhubaneswar having 104 luxury rooms in four different categories, a spa, banquet, dedicated swimming pool and a lawn over a sprawling 11,000 sq ft.

The star hotel which promises to provide quality services is looking to tap the ever-growing business class travellers from across India and abroad. For a start, each room will have plasma TVs, Wi-Fi connectivity and toilets with four compartments besides other amenities.

The hotel, at Kharvela Nagar where once another such property stood, has seen an investment of Rs 50 crore and boasts of a total makeover.

It has a dedicated “kebab centre” called “Kebaabs Unlimited”, a 24-hour multi-cuisine restaurant “Flavours”, “The Lounge Bar” besides business centre facility. Underground, a party floor, will soon add to the charm. HHI Bhubaneswar is the group’s third unit …

Jaiswal said that the group was planning a beach resort at Puri and is in talks with the Orissa Government for this.

Following are excerpts from an Economic Times report on this.

Monnet Ispat and Energy Limited on Friday said it plans to enhance capacity of its proposed steel unit from 0.3 MTPA to 2.5 MTPA and apprised the state government of the same.

The company’s managing director Sandeep Jajodia, who met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here, told reporters an integrated power project and a small steel unit in Orissa would be set up with an investment of Rs 4,200 crore.

The company had already acquired 450 acre out of its total requirement of nearly 1200 acre at Mangalapur, nearly 30 km from Cuttack, Jajodia said.

He said that the company’s proposed 1,000 MW thermal power plant was expected to be commissioned within three years.

“We have already acquired land for the purpose. Construction work for the project would start within 12 months after getting some more land,” Jajodia said, adding that the company would sign another MoU with the state government relating to capacity enhancement of its steel unit.

He said the company would first go for the power unit before starting the steel project. …

Samachar reports that Infosys is uncertain about growth in Bangalore and Mysore. They are actively looking at alternative arrangements.

Perhaps, Orissa’s IT sector can provide an attractive proposal to Infosys. This can provide employment about 22,000 directly speaking.

Earlier we mentioned the Shipyard proposal by Bharti shipyards and the Apeejay Surendra group. Following are some more details, excerpted from a Kalinga Times report.

Orissa is all set to have a shipbuilding factory at Charidiha near Dhamra mouth in Bhadrak district of the State. It will be the first such private sector venture in eastern India.

The Apeejay Surrendra Group and Bharati Shipyard Limited would set up the ultra-modern ship-manufacturing factory jointly with an investment of Rs 2,200 crore.

The factory will have both ship-manufacturing as well as repairing facilities. The project would create job opportunity for 41000 people directly and indirectly. …

Work on the project will commence in middle of 2008 and the same would be implemented in three phases to be completed by the end of 2013.

The growth taking place in the steel sector in Orissa would be of great helping for the shipbuilding factory.

In the first phase, 75000 tonnes of steel will be used for establishing the ship making factory. In the second phase, the project will require 2,30,000 tonnes of steel, and 4,50,000 tonnes in the third phase.

The government said that the company would also set up an industrial training centre at Dhamra area to train its prospective employees.

Dhamra has already been news as the Dhamra Port Company Limited (DPCL), a joint venture of L&T and Tata Steel, has already started groundwork for setting up of a deep port at the Dhamra mouth.

…

The Apeejay Surrendra Group has also expressed its willingness to set up a research and design centre and a Knowledge Park at Bhubaneswar, the government said.

The Knowledge Park would have a school as well as higher education on subjects such as business management, hotel management, fashion designing, food technology, and nutrition science and nautical science.

Following is an excerpt from a New Indian Express report on this.

Expanding its business portfolio, the Kolkata-based Saraf Group, promoters of Forum Mart shopping malls, has now decided to set up a titanium plant at Chhatrapur in Ganjam district.

The plant will be set up over 600 acres of land at an investment of Rs 2,000 crore in collaboration with the Russian Government. Production is likely to start by 2009- end.

This was disclosed by Saraf Group chairman S M Shroff while talking to mediapersons here on Tuesday. He said the project had received approval of the State Government and an MoU would be signed soon. The company had already acquired 200 acres.

He also announced setting up of two more shopping malls in the State, buoyed by the success of Forum Mart here. Both the malls – to come up in the Capital city and in Berhampur, would also have four-screen multiplex. The projects are likely to be completed by 2009-end.

Rediff reports that the new SEZ policy has been announced by the Govt.

Excerpts”

The National Policy on Rehabilitation and Resettlement, 2007, which was cleared at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, provides for land-for-land compensation, besides preference to affected families for jobs in projects coming up on their plots.”“The new policy seeks to make those entitled for compensation stakeholders in development by allowing them to take up to 20 per cent of the amount in the form of shares if the acquiring entity is authorised to issue these instruments.

“With prior approval of the government, this proportion can be as high as 50 per cent of the rehabilitation grant and compensation amount,” the Rural Development Ministry said.

The policy discourages speculative transactions of land acquired for public purposes. As a relief for developers, 30 per cent land can be compulsorily acquired by states for the promoters while the rest has to be bought by them.”

Reliance has welcomed this policy. It remains to be seen what implications this has on POSCO which wants SEZ status for it’s project.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times:

ITC group on Tuesday expressed keen interest in making investments for setting up luxury hotels and food parks in Orissa, official sources said.

This was conveyed to the state government during a meeting ITC vice president Nazib Arif had with chief minister Naveen Patnaik here, the sources said, adding Patnaik promised necessary cooperation for the proposed ventures.

The proposed food parks would have facilities for setting up of processing units, sources said.

Following are excerpts from a New Indian Express report.

Work on the Genetech City, the proposed bio-technology park at Andharua, on the outskirts of the city, will start from December if things go as per schedule.

The bio-technology park will be developed in PPP mode through competitive bidding route and the Science and Technology Department has invited tenders from private firms for development of the park on 54 acres provided by the State Government.

Eight developers – Akruti Nirman Limited, Mumbai, Eldeco Infrastructure and Properties Limited, New Delhi, Bharat Biotech Infrastructure, Hyderabad, TCG Urban Infrastructure and Holding Ltd, Mumbai, Ambience Developers and Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, Bhubaneswar Entertainment World Developers, Indore, Ramkey Infrastructure Ltd, Hyderabad and Unitech Limited, Kolkata have bided for the project.

The bidders have been asked to make their presentation to the Government on the project and bid selection will be completed by the end of this month, official sources said.

While 25 acres of the Genetech City will be used as bio-technology and pharmaceutical corridor, an information technology centre will be developed on another 15 acres. A bio-tech incubator centre will be developed on an area of 10 acres, sources said. IDCO has been entrusted with the job of infrastructure development of the park.

Following are excerpts from a New Indian Express report on this.

Tata’s budget hotel chain Ginger is expected to open doors to foodies in Paradip and Konark by the end of 2008.

Chief executive officer of Roots Corporation, Prabhat Pani said, they have already acquired one acre of land each in both these towns and would start construction in the next two months. Plans are also afoot to come up with a Ginger hotel in industrial towns like Jharsuguda, Angul and Kalinga Nagar in the next couple of years.

Roots Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Group and manages the Ginger chain of hotels. The company entered into the State in September last year with the launch of Ginger in the city.

Ranchi express reports that TATA M.D. B. MuthuRaman claims that Orissa is the ideal destination of investment growth among mineral rich states. Excerpts:

” Pleased with the progress of the company’s Kalinganagar (Orissa) project- especially with the approach of the Navin Patnayak government towards industrial development- Tata Steel Managing Director (MD) B.Muthuraman on Wednesday declared the mine-rich State as an ideal destination for investment growth.

“Of the three states- Jharkhand, Orissa and Chattisgarh- where we have announced Geenfield projects, Orissa a doing very well in terms of industrial development. I see the State develop immensely in the next few years,” Muthuraman said at an informal gathering at Beldih Club here.

Tata Steel is setting up a 6-MT Greenfield project in Orissa, besides Korean Steel Giant Psoco and Arcelor-Mittal have also signed MoUs with Patnaik government for setting up a 12-MT Greenfield project each. Among the three, the Tata Steel project may complete early as the company has made much headway in its mission in the last few months.”

” Pleased with the progress of the company’s Kalinganagar (Orissa) project- especially with the approach of the Navin Patnayak government towards industrial development- Tata Steel Managing Director (MD) B.Muthuraman on Wednesday declared the mine-rich State as an ideal destination for investment growth.

“Of the three states- Jharkhand, Orissa and Chattisgarh- where we have announced Geenfield projects, Orissa a doing very well in terms of industrial development. I see the State develop immensely in the next few years,” Muthuraman said at an informal gathering at Beldih Club here.

Tata Steel is setting up a 6-MT Greenfield project in Orissa, besides Korean Steel Giant Psoco and Arcelor-Mittal have also signed MoUs with Patnaik government for setting up a 12-MT Greenfield project each. Among the three, the Tata Steel project may complete early as the company has made much headway in its mission in the last few months.” This is in contrast to TATA local head B.D. Panda’s opinion a few days back , that Orissa is notthe frontline state for investment and Bengal is a preferable option.

This could also be construed a favourable response after the NDTV report talking about TATAs sitting on most high quality iron ore in Orissa.

Also, since the news item was in Jharkhand we should look at this news from a competitive perspective.

Following is an excerpt from a New Indian Express report.

The Assembly Committee on Industry has suggested that dedicated industrial parks should be set up for micro, small and medium scale industries in Kalinga Nagar, Jharsuguda, Paradip, Rayagada, Angul and Dhenkanal in view of the large number of mega industries coming up in several industrial zones in the State.

In its latest report, the committee said such parks should be specially earmarked for ancillary and downstream industries. It observed that considering the importance of the small and medium enterprises in employment generation and economic growth of the State, priority attention should be given for the revival and promotion of these sectors.

Official sources maintained that till November, 2006, investment in these two sectors had touched Rs 2,652.8 crore with employment generation of 5.48 lakh. Cluster approach has been adopted for development of small scale industries and major clusters have been identified for development and marketing linkage with the assistance of United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

The panel, however, observed that though 45 MoUs had been signed for establishment of steel plants in the State, progress has not been satisfactory. Of these, 20 companies have invested Rs 12,085 crore and started commercial production by December, 2006. These companies have created direct employment opportunities for 9,131 persons.

In the steel sector, investment has been estimated at Rs 1,86,499 crore with a total capacity of 73.43 million ton per annum. In the aluminium sector, two companies have signed MoUs with a proposed investment of Rs 25,000 crore.

Indian Oil Corporation is also setting up a refinery and petrochemical complex of 15 million ton capacity per annum with an investment of Rs 25,000 crore. Official sources said a chemical and petrochemical investment region is proposed to be set up at Paradip.

The committee has suggested that polytechnics should be established in all districts of the State and industrial training centres in all the block headquarters.

Besides, the 10 ITIs in the State should be upgraded gradually with 75 percent Central assistance, it added.