HLCA, comprising of Chief Minister and 12 other members, examines and considers proposals where the amount of investment is more than or equal to Rs 1,000 crore.
"No meeting of HLCA was held after September 2012 upto March 2014. Eleven proposals for setting up industries with investment of Rs 59,491.64 crore were delayed by one to 18 months. Issues such as industrial development, promotion of foreign direct investment, environment management, land policy, peripheral development, ancillary and downstream development, promotion of frontier industries did not find mention in the minutes", CAG said in its report on Economic Sector for the year ended March 2014.
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Besides giving overall direction to industrial development efforts made by Team Odisha, the HLCA may give specific directions wherever required.
CAG had audited the implementation of Single Window Mechanism and Financial Incentives under IPR 2007 during May-June 2014 covering the period 2007-2014.
Countering the auditor's observation, the state government in October 2014 stated that the date of convening of HLCA is based on various factors, convenience of committee and sufficiency of proposals.
Similarly, the proposal of the directorate of Industries to the state industries department in August 2007 for constitution of sub-committee/ expert bodies of HLCA on issues relating to foreign direct investment (FDI), environment management, land policy, periphery development, ancillary and downstream development and promotion of frontier industries was not apprised to HLCA.
CAG said, the benefit of valuable advice of resource persons on industrial development in respective fields could not be availed.
The auditor pointed out the decline in the number of combined application forms (CAFs) from investors received by Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha Ltd (Ipicol) from 2010-11 onwards.
As per Odisha Industries Facilitation Act (OIFA), functions of state level nodal agency (Ipicol) include issue and receipt of CAFs from entrepreneurs and arranging required clearance from departments and authorities concerned within specified time limit, state's image building to attract investments and guiding and assisting entrepreneurs to set up industries in the state.
"There has been a steady decline in number of CAFs from 2010-11 onwards. As against 87 CAFs received in 2010-11, state level nodal agency (SLNA) received 48 in 2011-12, 20 in 2012-13 and 26 in 2013-14. Further upto 2013-14, 52 proposals involving investment of Rs 2,66,545 crore were deferred by State Level Single Window Clearance Authority (SLSWCA) without assigning any recorded reasons and 62 proposals involving investment of Rs 54,541 crore were not yet put up to SLSWCA for want of further information from entrepreneurs even after one to eight years", CAG report stated.
Replying to the CAG's observation, the state government stated that SLSWCA had not mentioned the reason for deferment and it was due to matters related to policy issues and paucity of time for deliberation of proposal.
During 2007-14, Ipicol, as SLNA, received 378 proposals for setting up of industries in various sectors.