Bhubaneswar: The state government had decided to set up a biotechnology park on the outskirts of the city to make Bhubaneswar a hub for investors in biotechnology. The government identified 65 acres at Andharua on the city’s outskirts for the park.
Hyderabad-based vaccine major Bharat Biotech International Ltd (BBIL), a front runner in Covid vaccine programme, was chosen as an anchor tenant for the project. Bharat Biotech had taken 30 acres of valuable land at the site promising to set up a vaccine manufacturing unit here. However, the project remains a non-starter till now for reasons best known to the firm.
From the government side, IDCO has developed all infrastructure such as roads, boundary wall, lights, water supply and solar fencing as it is close to elephant sanctuary at Chandaka. The construction work was supposed to start by March 2011.
However, BBIL has not even commenced construction work. The entire site, supposed to resemble a plush business district, now resembles a forsaken desert with little or no activity.
Barring the formation of a company titled Odisha Biotech Park Private Limited and a small two-floored building, BBIL has carried out no physical progress at the site.
Even though no progress was made, the foundation stone for the project was laid twice. The stone for the Biotechnology Park was laid October 25, 2009 while the groundbreaking ceremony for setting up of a multiple human vaccine production plant was laid November 16, 2017.
As per the proposal, the park was supposed to have a Biotech Incubator (10 acres), a biotechnology corridor – modular labs (three acres), IT corridor (22 acres), administrative corridor (three acres) and infrastructure and commercial complex (25 acres).
At the Make-in-Odisha Conclave 2018, the chairman of Odisha Biotech Park Pvt Ltd Krishna Ella had committed to invest `500 crore in the state to set up a vaccine manufacturing unit.
An increasingly impatient IDCO had issued a notice to BBIL in 2015, asking it why the lease agreement should not be terminated. The notice had spurred the BBIL to seek more time from the state government to get its project on track to which the latter had grudgingly agreed.
“The project was first monitored by the science and technology department. Now, we are looking after it. All the required infrastructure including road, water supply, electricity has been provided to the site. We are also providing handholding support to Bharat Biotech to implement the project,” said a senior official of IDCO.
A Arunachalam, who is in charge of BBIL’s Odisha project, has not given any satisfactory answer for the delay. “There are many reasons for the delay. The state government has provided all kinds of support. We are fully committed to implement the project and very soon, maybe in the next two months, work will start,” Arunachalam said.
Asked about the present status of the project, he said, “We have got required approval from the State Pollution Control Board. Now we are waiting for the environment clearance from the Centre. Until we get the environment clearance, we cannot start construction at the site.”
The company Biotech is planning to make a vaccine against malaria, injectable polio vaccine, Covid-19 human papilloma vaccine (HPV) in the first phase.
Had the project been implemented, Odisha would have got a chance to compete with the world in Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing. Specially, biotechnology students of Odisha would have benefited from this, said former biotechnology director Uma Ballav Mishra.
Biswa Bhusan Mohapatra, OP