It is raining mega investment in Orissa, but none of the big ticket projects has made any headway hitting the land acquisition, environmental clearance and sundry other hurdles.
South Korean steel major Posco's Rs 51,000-crore project, Vedanta's Rs 5,000 crore mining venture and Tata Steel and ArcelorMittal's Rs 15,400 crore and Rs 40,000 crore projects respectively are some of the mega proposals which are still-born.
''At present, we have over Rs four lakh crore of committed investments in various stages of implementation,'' Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said.
He, however, did not mention the remaining Rs two lakh crore investment for which foreign and domestic investors were making a beeline.
Posco's 12 mtpa mega steel mill at an investment of Rs 51,000 crore has been hanging fire for the last five years in the absense of land arrangement by the state government.
Similar is the case of ArcelorMittal which also proposed to set up a 12mtpa greenfield steel plant.
In both the cases fierce resistance to land acquisition, procedural bottlenecks and legal and mining issues involved have come in the way of their implementation.
''Mega projects could not be set up overnight. One has to have patience for their implemenation as the state is gradually opening up to environment protection,'' reasoned industries and steel and mines minister Raghunath Mohanty.
Mohanty, however, claimed that of the 50 MoUs signed in the steel sector, 29 units have already reached different stages of production while others in small and medium scale would come up soon.
Similarly, one aluminium and one cement company have already commissioned commercial production, he said claiming that roadblocks were being gradually cleared for the Posco project.
''The state government had recently acquired about 1,000 acres of land for housing Posco's mega steel mill near Paradip for which 4,000 acres is needed,'' he said.
The state has till date signed 86 MoUs including 50 for steel units, 27 for thermal power projects, four for alumina-aluminium units and six for ports.
Land acquisition has emrged as the major hurdle before industrialisation, pointed out a senior official at the industries department.
He said of the 45,607 acres of land required for the 86 MoU signed companies, only 15,000 acre had so far been be acquired.
Posco, whose project is billed as the biggest foreign direct investment in India, had signed an MoU with the state government on June 22, 2005 to set up a steel mill, a mining prorject and a captive port facility.
Five years on, the steel behemoth failed to make any progress in any of the sectors stuck in procedural bottlenecks relating to forest and environment clearance and permission for mining activities.
''It is a piquant situation. Villagers will not sacrifice their fertile land for the steel plant as they earn their livelihood from the forest land,'' Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti president Abhay Sahu said.
PPSS has been demanding shifting of Posco's plant site while both the company and the state government were adamant on not budging from the earmarked land, causing little progress in the project, an industry department official said.
Similarly, Posco's bid to get prospecting license over the iron rich Khandadhar mines was embroiled in a legal battle with other contenders. The case has moved to the Orissa High Court.
