___________

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

The largest integrated tourism project of the state — Samuka — is coming up on 3,000 acres of land on the sea beach near Puri. The project involves an investment of Rs 116.59 crore and is being implemented on public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

… The project had been visualised as a one-stop rejuvenation facility for “body and mind of tourists” and provide business opportunities to private investors while protecting the tourism interest of the state, official sources said.

The principal project components include star hotels, resorts, international convention centre, golf course, golf villas, cultural villages and craft bazaar.

Chief secretary Bijay Patnaik reviewed the progress of the proposed project at the state secretariat here today. At present, development plan has been prepared for 972 acres by the state tourism department and state-run Orissa Tourism Development Corporation, an official said.

“Protect natural beauty and environment while developing integrated tourism project along the sea shore. The project should aim at preservation and promotion of the state’s tourist potentials,” Patnaik told officials at the review meeting.

To take Samuka ahead, the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa (Idco) has already acquired 972 acres.

“Puri district collector has submitted proposal for further acquisition of 622 acres for a cost of Rs 4.81 crore. The government is examining the proposal. Tenders have been invited from hoteliers for construction of hotels and sea resorts. The committee has decided to invite and negotiate with interested investors and builders to give shape to the commercially viable components of the projects,” he added. The Idco has also constructed approach road to the proposed site for Rs 7.63 crore.

“The state energy department has been asked to supply power to the site for which Rs 37.56 crore will be spent.

“Water supply to the site will be provided for an investment of Rs 63.77 crore,” the official said.

It is good that the Chief Secretary has started reviewing the various large projects. I hope he does that regularly until the projects are completed.

• See http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/archives/3488 for some design pictures of this project.
• See also http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=119124261452067 for additional details.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times.

Mumbai Angels, an angel investment network, will invest in Kolkata-based milk packaging and distributing company Milk Mantra . The company, which is the latest in the agri sector to catch attention of investors, has already received early stage funding from Avishkar and an angel investor based in the UK.

“The company is planning to introduce fresh milk in cartons for the first time in India. It is a huge opportunity for a market like India where fresh milk is available only in plastic covers, which are not always hygienic.

… “Our aim is to offer direct to home service of fresh milk packed in a more hygienic manner. We have tied up with about 50,000 farmers in Orissa to procure milk. We expect to start business this year and in the initial phase it will be available in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar,” he said.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

The Indian Air force wants to develop the Charbatia base in Cuttack district into a full-fledged base station.

“I want to see an air base at Charbatia,” Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik told reporters after visiting the base. Presently, Charbatia is an aerial reconnaissance post of the Aviation Research Centre.

Charbatia base, spread over 2000 acres, is now with the Union home ministry. The airstrip came up in the area in the 1960s.

Earlier, Air Marshal J.N. Burma had discussed the issue with chief minister Naveen Patnaik in January, 2010. The Air Marshal had also urged Naveen to recommend to the home ministry to hand over the land to air force.

“Unless the state recommends, the Centre cannot transfer land to the air force,” said an IAF official.

Sources in the state government said the IAF had already given a proposal to the Centre to this effect and wants to invest Rs 5,000 crore in the base.

Revenue divisional commissioner Pradipta Mohapatra said he had already directed the Cuttack district collector to arrange the land for the air base. “They require an additional 600 acres of land. Discussion on the matter is going on,” he said.

With more and more BPUT operations moving to Rourkela (thanks to http://rourkelacity.com for the pointer) there could be some huge positives, but not one that people normally think as BPUT’s academic programs in Rourkela will not be better than the programs at NIT Rourkela. But there would be definitely more seats; so that would be good. But the biggest positives would be with respect to connectivity.

In particular, the connectivity between Rourkela and the rest of Odisha, especially the Bhubaneswar area, would improve. Currently not enough attention is being paid to that.

For example, the Talcher-Bimlagarh line will significantly shorten the distance between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. The distance between them will become 308 kms: BBS-Talcher (114) + Talcher-Bimlagarh(154) + Bimlagarh-Rourkela(40). Currently the shortest distance is 419 kms. Once Talcher-Bimlagarh line is completed one could travel between BBS and ROU in about 5 hours. That would mean one could take a train from one place at 6 and reach the other at 11. Currently the BBS-ROU intercity takes 7hrs 30 minutes one way and 7hs 55 minutes the other way. On the other hand the BBS-SBP takes between 4:40 to 4:50 minutes in the two intercities (BBS-BLGR and SBP-Puri).

So lets hope that the inconvenience caused by having many BPUT operations from Rourkela will lead to people demanding speeding up of the completion of the Talcher-Bimlagarh line and perhaps even the start of shuttle flights between Bhubaneswar and Rourkela.

Another positive would be that more private colleges (not now but in few years when the demand picks up again) may come up close to Rourkela and the frequent travel by college heads to Rourkela could give them ideas to develop the travel corridor in many ways.

So although the convenience argument is often used by many (including me) to support some BPUT operations in Bhubaneswar, where most of the BPUT colleges are, perhaps for the greater and longer term good some inconvenience in the short term can be accepted.

Bringing Rourkela and Bhubaneswar closer (in travel time as well as in people’s mind) would be a big plus for Odisha.

Lets work on operationalizing Talcher-Bimlagarh line in 3-5 years!

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

India’s first low-cost hospital will be up and running in Mysore early next year.

These state-of-the art hospitals will be built at a cost of Rs 16 crore, about one-fifth the cost of constructing a 300-bed super-speciality hospital.

The brainchild of renowned cardio-surgeon Dr Devi Shetty, this unique hospital will be piloted in Mysore and then in Siliguri (West Bengal) and Bhubaneswar (Orissa). The Union health ministry has evinced interest in the project.

… Narayana Hrudayalaya has tied up with Larsen & Toubro to execute the Mysore project which uses pre-fabricated material transported from Puducherry. The general wards will receive daylight to the desired levels. Only the OT complex and pre/post operation and ICU areas will have a conventional concrete structure.

"Most hospitals today have huge vertical structures with heavy airconditioning. The best sanitiser for hospital is sunlight and fresh air. We don’t want patients to feel intimidated by the hospital. Besides having the best medical facilities, we’ll allow one family member to provide moral support to patients," Dr Shetty said.

In this chain of hospitals, heart surgeries will be performed for Rs 50,000 (compared to Rs 2 lakh or more depending on degree of complications) and other surgeries like gall bladder and hernia will cost between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.

While hospitals in Mysore, Bhubaneshwar and Siliguri will come up on land given at subsidized rates by the respective state governments, other hospitals will come up on the public private partnership model. "We haven’t come up with a name yet of these hospitals," Dr Shetty said

(Thanks to Purna Mohanty for the pointer.)

Following is from PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=66381.

Development and promotion of tourism is undertaken primarily by the State Governments/Union Territory Administrations. The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, extends financial assistance to the State Governments/Union Territory Administrations for tourism related projects which are identified in consultation with them, under various tourism schemes of the Ministry. In the year 2008-09 a mega circuit project named development of tourist circuit “Bhubaneswar-Puri-Chilka” in the State of Orissa was sanctioned for an amount of Rs. 30.23 crore.

The Biju Patnaik Airport at Bhubaneswar has been taken up for development and upgradation to international standards, with a new terminal building with all modern facilities including two aerobridges and expansion of apron.

****

AD/DB

Following are some pictures of the planned new terminal for Bhubaneswar. One of them appears in the web page of http://auroraconsultingengineers.com/reference.html. Thanks to Devasis Sarangi, Rajeswar and others for the pictures.

Tourism is only one aspect of Bhubaneswar. The others include: capital city, metropolitan area of 1.9 million, educational and knowledge hub (e..g., 70+ engineering colleges) and surrounded by emerging industrial and business centers (Berahmpur, Angul, Kalinganagar, Paradeep) and existing and emerging ports (Paradeep, Dhamara, Gopalpur and many new ones in pipeline).

Following is an excerpt from a Business Standard report in sify.com.

Construction work on the Rs 100-crore Konark Knowledge Park, a biotech-pharma-IT hub, being developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited on around 65 acres of land at Andharua on the outskirts of the city, is set to take off by March 2011.

"The biotech park would have all statutory clearances within four months and construction work will begin soon after that", an official source told Business Standard.

… The land leveling for this project is already over and efforts are underway to provide piped water and power supply to the park.

The park is set to be completely operational within eight years of the commencement of construction work.The park would have a Biotechnology Incubation Centre spread over 10 acres. The incubation centre to be developed within the park would cater to the needs of the researchers, entrepreneurs and students.

The Centre would provide equipment called the biotech incubator worth Rs 25 crore for the incubation centre.The biotech industry in the country is growing at a very good pace and this incubation centre is set to emerge as a Centre of Excellence.

The Konark Kowledge Park is the first of its kind venture to be developed on the public private partnership (PPP) mode in the state in the field of science and technology.

… The Industrial Infrastructure Corporation of Orissa (Idco) has been appointed as the nodal agency for the development of this integrated park would provide all external infrastructure facilities like roads, water supply and electricity for this complex.

The following numbers are obtained (with some calculation) from http://www.aai.aero/traffic_news/traffic_news.jsp. (Thanks to Devasis Sarangi for the pointer.)

The numbers in the last column are not directly in any file in the above site, but were calculated using data in multiple files. No assumptions were made.

The following pages give comparative numbers of domestic passenger traffic in Bhubaneswar airport with respect to other airports in India. Note that the decline from 2007-08 to 2008-09 was across the board. However,  the decline of 4.3% with respect to Bhubaneswar airport during that time was much less than the national decline of 11.2% for the same period.

With respect to the above data the domestic passenger traffic in Bhubaneswar is close to the domestic traffic in the international airport of Lucknow and is more than the domestic traffic in the international airports of Trivandrum, Calicut, Amritsar, Port Blair and Nagpur; It is more than the domestic traffic in the custom airports of Mangalore, Trichy, Bagdogra, Varanasi, Patna and Gaya and all other domestic airports that include Indore, Vizag, Vadodara, Jammu, Raipur, Chandigarh, etc.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Expressbuzz.com.

The wildlife wing of the Forest department has raised concerns over the setting up of 1,000 mw thermal power plant proposed by Tata Power Company at Naraj.

Its proximity to critical sites, impact of pollution on them as well as on the wildlife are issues the wildlife wing is worried about. The ` 4,900 cr coal-based power project is proposed at Naraj Marthapur, about 12 km from Cuttack and 20 km from Bhubaneswar.

“The Centre had referred the project site matter to me. Subsequently, I inspected the proposed power plant site and submitted a report in which I have indicated certain concerns relating to environment and wildlife,” Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) P N Padhi said on Monday.

One of the major issues is its location. According to Padhi’s report, the power plant is proposed amidst six critical sites.

It has Bhubaneswar and Cuttack on both sides and it is located between two major rivers __ Mahanadi and Kathjodi.

Besides, it is flanked by two wildlife habitats __ Chandaka- Dampara wildlife sanctuary on the one hand and Nandankanan Zoological Park and Zoo, also a notified sanctuary, on the other.

“With two protected areas (PAs) on its sides, a thermal power plant may have adverse impact on wildlife,” Padhi said. Chandaka, for one, is an elephant sanctuary and has witnessed growing man-animal conflict over the past 10 years.

Besides, the jumbos are known to stray out of their habitats more frequently in the last few years.

Similarly, apprehension of pollution is a major concern …

The power project, which is located in Cuttack Sadar tehsil, needs about 990 acres. It is well close to a road that connects Khurda, Chandaka, Barang and Gobindpur. …

That location (close to Sri Sri University) is apt for a knowledge park. Since the Tatas have already worked hard on the land acquisition Odisha government should tell them that instead of a power plant they should create a Knowledge Park there. It could include a large operation of TCS, a TCS training center like the Infosys center in Mysore, space and infrastructure for multiple universities, medical colleges, etc.

There the total land area is about 990 acres. Currently such an amount of contiguous land is not available so close to Bhubaneswar where one can build IT parks and knowledge parks.

So the Odisha government should consider giving the Tatas some other land for their power plant and use that land for a knowledge park, possibly even built by the Tatas.

My position is that the ministry is most welcome to make Vizag an international airport; but it should not deprive Bhubaneswar the same. Since the above article pokes holes on Bhubaneswar’s claims for international designation and explicitly mentions Vizag, hence my following attemp to compare the two in terms of daily non-stop flight connectivity. I used http://www.cleartrip.com and used the dates of 18th and 26th Novmeber. (This is an initial attempt. If I missed something please let me know.)

* The Kingfisher Delhi-Bhubaneswar flights are canceled for now, in November they show twice a day and in some December dates they show once a day. Its exact schedule is at http://www.flykingfisher.com/Flex/schedules.pdf. There it shows the following:

Delhi (DEL) IT 3346 19:30 21:25 320 0 03 Oct 2010 24 Oct 2010 7 Kingfisher Red Service
Delhi (DEL) IT 3346 20:30 22:40 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service
Delhi (DEL) IT 3350 09:10 11:20 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service

Bhubaneswar (BBI) IT 3345 17:05 19:00 320 0 03 Oct 2010 24 Oct 2010 7 Kingfisher Red Service
Bhubaneswar (BBI) IT 3345 17:45 19:55 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service
Bhubaneswar (BBI) IT 3349 06:30 08:40 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service

That is it will have twice daily flights between Bhubaneswar and Delhi.

Some other comparative numbers:

• As per http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=55629 average number of flights operated in a day from Bhubaneswar is 50 and from Vizag is 33.
• As per the world-gazetteer the population of the Bhubaneswar metropolitan area is 1,696,807 and the population of the Vizag metropolitan area is 1,534,162. 

On Jharsuguda airport there seems to be a deadlock. It is clear that the center wants 815 acres land and the state is offering only 734 acres.

Why is not the state giving the amount of land the center is asking for? Is there some genuine reason behind it? I don’t know. Perhaps someone who knows can help.

Also is the amount of land that the center is asking an absolute must? Are there other operational airports with less land? (I don’t know.) Ofcourse more land would mean a bigger airport. But is not it possible to use the land the state is giving to make the airport and then pursue the additional land for future expansion.

Update: Just did some search and found that:

• Patna airport covers an area of only 254 acres.
• Varanasi airport covers an area of 582.5 acres.
• Trivandrum airport is a 583 acres campus.
• Tirupati airport: Currently at 293 acres and will grow to 690 acres.
• Dibrugarh airport: 253.96 acres.
• Jaipur airport: 716 acres.
• Tiruchi airport: 702 acres.
• Jammu airport: 88.7 acres. (??)
• Srinagar airport: 52.6 acres. (??)
• Ranchi airport: 526 acres.

Outside India there are some very busy airports that have around 700 acres of land. For example:

• La Guardia Airport in New York is 650 acres. (It is next to a river through.)
  • In 2008, 176,373 flights departed LaGuardia. That makes it an average of 483 flights a day.
• Reagan National Airport in Washington DC is 733 acres. (It is also next to a river.)

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

Peerless Hotels is looking for land to set up four-star facilities in Bhubaneswar, Noida and Navi Mumbai, according to a senior official of the company.

“Our negotiations with the Orissa government for the Bhubaneswar project are at an advanced stage, and if we get the land that we have chosen, the construction of the 80-room hotel will start in another one year,” Peerless Hotels chief executive officer Kunal Sen said.

… “The setting up of a four-star hotel with 80-100 rooms entails an investment of between Rs 75 crore and Rs 95 crore, including land cost that may be between Rs 15 crore and Rs 35 crore depending on location,” Sen said.

Following is from the PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=65819.

The Board of Approval of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) met here today to consider proposals for setting up of Special Economic Zones and also to approve other miscellaneous requests pertaining to SEZs.

Addressing the Board of Approval members, the Chairman informed that so far 577 formal approvals have been granted for setting up of SEZs out of which 363 have been notified. …

In this meeting, the Board recommended grant of Ten Formal Approvals and one In-Principal Approval.

· Formal Approvals:

… IT/ITES – M/s. Suryo Infra Projects Private Limited, Mouza – Tulasideipur, Chandaka, Bhubaneswar, Orissa.

Following is from a report in Business Standard.

The food processing sector is gradually gaining momentum in the state. After a string of investment proposals from biggies in the sector like Britannia, ITC, Parle Agro Indo Nissin and Future Foods, another behemoth in the packaged food industry-Nestle has evinced interest in setting up a state-of-the-art food processing unit in the state at an investment of around Rs 500 crore.

The food processing facility of Nestle would be spread over 50 acres and the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa Ltd (Idco) has already identified land for the purpose between Bhubaneswar and Khurda, an official source told Business Standard.

Nestle India’s Orissa facility will manufacture the entire gamut of the company’s products including milk products, beverages, chocolates and confectionery.

… Among the other big players in the food processing sector- Parle Agro’s unit has been cleared by the State Level Single Window Clearance Authority while the site selection is underway for the proposed project of Indo Nissin Foods, the noodles maker.

ITC has so far remained non-responsive after initially evincing interest to invest in the food processing sector.

Following is from http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100913/jsp/orissa/story_12929859.jsp.

Following is an excerpt from a report in sify.com.

Britannia Industries Ltd, India’s leading biscuit company, expects to start work on its second unit in Orissa soon.

"We have applied to the Orissa government for 10-12 acres of land near the twin city of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar and expect to get a final nod on it within weeks", said Vinita Bali, Managing Director, Britannia Industries.

Bali, …, said the proposed unit will produce different varieties of biscuits mainly for the Orissa market.

The unit, to be built at cost of Rs 40 to 45 crore, will have an installed capacity to produce about 2,500 tonnes of biscuit per month.

It being a labour intensive industry, the unit will employ about 500 to 700 persons. This will be the second unit of the company in Orissa. It presently has a 1,000 tonnes per month capacity biscuit unit in Mayurbhanj, boardering West Bengal.

… The company, at present, has manufacturing facilities in Uttaranchal, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

Should the Odisha government give them 10-12 acres of land in Bhubaneswar-Cuttack for an investment of only 45 acres and employment of 700 people, most of which will be perhaps unskilled workers? Also, why do they need to establish it in Bhubaneswar-Cuttack. Why not in a rural area where 700 unskilled jobs will be appreciated more and where land is less of a concern.