BHUBANESWAR: Former Union Minister Srikant Jena on Saturday requested Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to buy back 51 per cent (pc) share of the Centre from Odisha Drugs and Chemicals Ltd (ODCL) to save the only medicine manufacturing unit of the State.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, Jena said ODCL, a joint venture between Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd (IDPL), a public sector undertaking of Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, and State-owned IPICOL, was gifted to Odisha by the then Janata Party government at Centre.
Biju Patnaik and Rabi Ray were both Cabinet ministers in that government.
“ODCL was gifted to Odisha by the Janata Party government in 1977 with the main objective of production of live saving drugs at affordable price for people of Odisha and other eastern states,” the letter said.
He said ODCL started making profit from 2010-11 till its closure in December, 2020. The annual profit was about Rs 2 crore with an annual turnover of approximately Rs 100 crore.
Jena further said ODCL had received an infusion of Rs 5 crore from the UPA-II government when he was the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers and this assistance helped it to become a viable unit. Stating that the present land value of this unit is around Rs 200 crore apart from its fixed assets, he said the ODCL facility could be used for vaccine production.
Seeking the CM’s intervention to buy back the IDPL share worth Rs 64 lakh, Jena said, “Vaccine production is the greatest challenge now. If we can rope in a strategic partner then we can achieve this in the shortest possible time through ODCL and this can be an asset for Odisha in the future.”