NEWSMAKER: Naveen Patnaik

In his father's footsteps

He might have been educated at Doon School and Delhi University and become a deracinated Oriya, unable to speak the language of the state he runs.

He was also known for his lavish parties in Delhi, his appreciation of the arts, and his unconventional and avant garde friends "" ranging from Mick Jagger to Jacqueline Onassis.

But Orissa Chief Minister Naveen (Pappu) Patnaik has proved he is very much his Papa's son. A project that was just a gleam in Biju Patnaik's eye has now fructified in Orissa, following the decision of the South Korea based Pohang Steel Company (Posco), the fourth largest steel maker in the world with 29 million tonnes capacity, to set up a 12 million tonne steel plant in Orissa at an estimated investment of Rs 40,000 crore.

Why did it take 15 years and one generation for a dream to become a reality?

In 1990 when Biju Patnaik became the chief minister of Orissa for the second time, one of his first jobs was to invite Posco to set up what was envisaged as the second integrated steel facility in Orissa after the Rourkela Steel Plant, built in the early 1960s.

The senior Patnaik visualised a shore-based plant at Paradip. At the time, though a team of Posco executives reconnoitered the state, things did not move any further.

What Biju Patnaik could not do, his son, a reluctant heir to Biju Patnaik's mantle in 1997 after the patriarch's death, has managed to swing.

"It was my father's dream to make Orissa a steel hub in Asia using its vast natural resources," Naveen Patnaik has said and he is halfway there. Orissa has already signed 25 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with different industrial houses for setting up steel plants in the state.

But Posco was clearly the jewel in his crown. So when reports came out that Posco was looking at Brazil as an alternative destination, Naveen Patnaik did not lose time and sent his Chief Secretary Subash Pani and two other senior officers to South Korea to convince the top management of the company of Orissa's merits.

Apart from assurance of all support, including raw material linkage "" the company has asked for one billion tonnes of iron-ore reserves for the project "" the chief minister did not forget to mention his father's unfulfilled desire to have Posco in Orissa during his lifetime.

In fact, Patnaik's keenness on the Posco plan could be gauged from the fact that soon after the executive vice-president of the company, Cho Sang Sik, had made a formal presentation to the chief minister on the project in August last year, the state government had formed a high-level working group to pilot the venture.

The mandate of the working group headed by the state steel and mines secretary was clear: get Posco at all costs "" and fast.

It is not just Posco the Patnaik government has tried to woo. Various industrial houses starting from Tata group to Vedanta to Jindals and Bhushans have got personal calls from Naveen Patnaik in the last one year.

Politically, it was important for Patnaik to show results in the second phase of his chief ministership, the first (from 2000 to 2004) being a period of consolidation.

The chief minister has written three books: A Second Paradise, A Desert Kingdom and The Garden of Life on environment, culture and social history.

All this marks him as an observer of life. He was a newcomer to Orissa when he became chief minister and it is to his credit that he has managed to reinvent himself almost entirely.