BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday proposed to Tata Group to set up a defence manufacturing cluster at Naraj. The issue was raised by the Chief Minister during a meeting with Chairman of Tata Sons Natarajan Chandrasekharan here at the Secretariat. Naveen suggested that the Tata Advanced Systems may consider to develop this cluster in 871 hectares of land which is in possession of the Tata Power.Expressing happiness over the expansion of Tata’s Kalinga Nagar plant, the Chief Minister proposed that establishment of a downstream cluster at Kalinga Nagar should be considered with provision of liquid metal.
Naveen also gave several other proposals, including an e-vehicle project by Tata Motors, a manufacturing unit by Tata Chemicals at Paradip and requested more investment in manufacturing sector at the company’s special economic zone (SEZ) and domestic tariff area (DTA) area at Gopalpur to generate employment.
The Chief Minister also proposed the Tata Industries to participate in world skill centre project as an industry partner to deliver world class skill to the State’s youth. He also requested the company to step up campus placements in different government engineering colleges, ITIs and polytechnics. He asked Chandrasekharan to speed up the setting up of 500-bed super specialty hospital at Sitalapalli in Ganjam district. He also requested Tata Son’s Chairman to expedite the payment of crop insurance claims to farmers of the State.
Chandrasekharan said the Tata Sons would consider all the proposals of the Chief Minister and try its best to realise the proposed projects.Naveen suggested that Tata Motors along with Voltas Limited and Thyssenkrupp should consider establishing workshops in some selected government ITIs. Besides, he also asked the Tatas to promote micro-entrepreneurship development programme for women under Mission Shakti.Among others, Chief Secretary AP Padhi, Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan, Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) TK Pandey and senior officials attended the meeting.