Bhubaneswar: Odisha has witnessed a rapid transformation in the past decade in terms of industrialization and has become ‘preferred destination for investors’, a study said.
The study jointly conducted by the MSME Export Promotion Council and Confederation of Organic Food Producers & Marketing Agencies said despite COVID-19 pandemic which triggered the largest global economic crisis, Odisha attracted record new investment proposals of more than Rs 4,54,175 crore in four financial years of 2018-19 to 2021-22.
The study “Investment, growth & development in Odisha – a land of opportunities” jointly conducted by the MSME Export Promotion Council and Confederation of Organic Food Producers & Marketing Agencies was released Monday by MSME EPC chairman Dr D S Rawat Monday.
Releasing the study, Dr Rawat said during the period Rs 1,26,529.53 crore investment projects were completed and many of the projects were in advanced stages of completion. The investment generated over one lakh job opportunities.
The state has witnessed a rapid transformation in the past decade in terms of industrialization and has become ‘preferred destination for investors’. The state is successfully attracting the highest investment for the last few years resulting in a big boost to the all-around growth.
The study analyzed the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) data related to new investment proposals, projects completed and revived, and outstanding as well as under-implementation projects.
During the pandemic period of 2020-21 which severely affected the entire world, the state attracted new investment proposals of Rs 1,12,188.46 crore, completed projects worth Rs 26,268.42 crore, and revived projects of Rs 3,344.10 crore.
It was noted that the total outstanding investment projects were Rs 1643994.45 crore while the under implementation stood at Rs 8,84,090.55 crore.
In 2021-22, the new investment projects announced were of Rs.1,12,329.04 crore, completed projects were of Rs 21,031.10 crore, the total outstanding projects were of Rs17,65,831.77 crore and under-implementation projects was Rs 9,27,630.87 crore.
Export of all commodities, including petroleum & crude and non-petroleum products such as agriculture and allied, minerals, manufactured goods, and other commodities has been significantly increasing.
Dr Rawat said the study found that the state has been at the forefront of the adoption of IT and experimenting with emerging technologies to drive and transform governance in the state to positively impact the lives of the citizens.
Due to the effective execution of the policy initiatives, the state has increasingly become the destination for modern technology companies in the eastern part of India. All the major IT companies have a long presence in the state and of late, international organizations are also moving to the state.
Odisha offers huge potential to the food processing and organic farming sectors. While the food processing sector has been significantly contributing to reducing post-harvest losses and promoting horticulture and agri-based factories, organic farming has helped farmers to enhance their income for sustainable livelihood.
The study says, year after year, new farmers are becoming organic farmers and now the total area under certification process both cultivated and wild harvest in 2020-21 in Odisha has been 96,306.88 hectares, the cultivated farm area during 2020-21 was 92,694.81 hectares.
The organic area under wild collection during the same period was 3,612.07 hectares. The farm production in 2020-21 has been 1,31,852.02 hectares and organic production from wild areas was 242.00 MT, the study said.
UNI