Red tape won’t draw investment to Odisha
After a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus, the Odisha government is shifting gears for the third edition of its flagship investment meet, Make in Odisha 2022. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik interacted with ambassadors of 16 countries on August 31 in New Delhi, for partnering with the state’s industrial dream. In June, at Dubai, he had set the tone for the biennial summit by holding his career’s first-ever overseas investment meet. The meet promises to be a mega affair, and the Biju Janata Dal government is leaving no stone unturned to make the marquee event successful.
There is much to root for Make in Odisha Conclave, which had kicked off in style in 2016, with Naveen flanked by the then Finance Minister, late Arun Jaitley, and chairman of Adani Group, Gautam Adani. The two editions generated a combined investment intent of a whopping `6.22 lakh crore, but the ground reality is starkly different. By the government’s admission in the State Assembly, investment materialised so far stands at `5,674 crore, generating employment for only around 5,800 persons.
Nearly 17 years after Naveen rolled out the carpet, Odisha’s story of industrialisation has left much to desire. A simple analysis shows that the state has refused to change its focus from extractive industries. The heft in investment proposals comes from expansion projects in the minerals and metallurgical sectors, while the much-talked-about ancillary and downstream industries have not taken off. Yet, there is hardly any change in the investment basket. Food processing, agro-based industries, and tourism sectors have grown slowly; pharma and automotive industries have very little to show.
Bhubaneswar, which once vied for space on the national IT/ITES map, has attracted no international software companies of note—which have then taken flight elsewhere. All this points to a jaded outlook that has refused to adapt. The disappointments of big-ticket projects in the mid-2000s pegged back the industrial dream. Still, land acquisition remains a major hurdle despite the government creating a land bank.
Despite all proclamations of bringing Ease of Doing Business by eliminating red-tapism, the bane of the smug bureaucratic machinery that is not entrepreneur-friendly persists as strong as ever. Make in Odisha cannot be translated on the ground unless a fresh approach is adopted and a conducive investment scenario is created.