Orissa to witness major development within 5yrs

Kolkata, Apr 3: Orissa is all set to witness a major economic growth along with social development in the next five years, according to MP from Orissa Pyarimohan Mohapatra.

Talking to UNI on the sidelines of a seminar on "Development of Industry in Eastern India" here yesterday, Mr Mohapatra said since his state possessed rich and vast natural resources, the government was taking all possible steps to harness it.

Asked about the present industrialisation scenario, he said out of the 45 MoUs signed by the government with various steel-producing units in the past five years, about 23 units have started production and the rest would soon follow suit.

''The state has got a major economic facelift in the regime of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He is on an industrilisation spree but not at the cost of poor peasants. I feel sorry for what happened in Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal and we will ensure such incidents do not recur in Orissa,'' Mr Mohapatra stated.

He said the state government had decided to take initiatives to improve the socio-economic condition of the people.

''We are working on alleviating poverty by raising the socio-economic standard of the people below poverty line,'' he said.

The government had decided to set up various small scale industries and develop the handicraft units of the state to provide employement to the poor.

''We are trying to adequately compensate the peasants,whose lands have been acquired, but one should not compare the land rates with other states. The rates in Singur cannot be compared with that of Kalinganagar,'' Mr Mohapatra said.

Asked about various companies withdrawing their projects from the state, Mr Mohapatra negated the statement, saying POSCO was stuck.

However, negotiations were going over the demand of the locals, whose land had been acquired.

Giving a brief account upon the major industries, which had started production or were on the verge, he said Bhusan Steel and Strips at Angul and Jharsuguda district had started production and both units were set to three million ton of steel and sponge iron by this year.

The Mittal steel project would be giving their feasibility report to the government soon and the people of Kheonjhar district had welcomed the project, he added.

Other projects in the pipeline were three million ton of Uttam Galva and Ruchi steels of Indore, Nalco expansion programme, Mr Mohapatra stated.

The chief minister has announced Rs 4 lakh crore to be invested in mining, power and alumina sector and about 74 million tonne of steel would be produced from the 45 steel producing units.

UNI