BHUBANESWAR: Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly SN Patro on Monday asked the State Government to take up the issue of shifting of the regional office of the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) from Cuttack to Kolkata.
Raising the issue in the Assembly, BJD MLA Pritiranjan Ghadei drew the attention of the Government through the Speaker to the decision of the DGFT under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to close down its regional office in Cuttack.
Ghadei said the closure of the DGFT office will adversely impact the the State which had exported merchandise worth Rs 45,347.71 crore in 2018-19. The seafood export from the State during the last fiscal was about Rs 3,000 crore, he added.
With the State being a major exporter of minerals, the BJD MLA from mineral-rich Sukinda Constituency of Jajpur district said the Centre has recognised Odisha as the ‘Champion State’ for export. Odisha’s major export sectors are aluminum and its products, iron ore, iron and steel, processed minerals, marine products, residual chemical and allied products, textiles, IT and ITES.
The BJD legislator sought to know why the Centre decided to close down the only regional office of DGFT in the State when three such offices are functioning in Gujurat. “This clearly show the stepmotherly attitude of the BJP Government at the Centre to Odisha,” Ghadei said.
He said the shifting of the regional office to Kolkata will create a lot of inconvenience to the exporters of the State. He urged the Speaker to issue necessary instruction to the Government on the matter.The Speaker asked the department concerned to take up the issue with appropriate authority at the Centre.
Earlier, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had urged the Commerce Ministry not to shift the DGFT regional office from Cuttack in view of the developmental needs of the State.