Even as the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of many steel and power projects in the state is pending for renewal, the Orissa government is in no hurry to renew these pacts.
Instead, the state government is meticulously reviewing the milestones achieved by these players to assess the eligibility of renewal of their MoUs.
"The MoUs of 8-10 steel players as well as some IPPs are pending for renewal but as such we are in no hurry to renew them. It is our endeavour to ensure that the industries who have signed MoUs with the state government achieve certain milestones pertaining to the progress of the project and also comply unfailingly with the employment clause”, a highly placed official source told Business Standard.
According to the employment clause, it is mandatory for the industries setting up their projects in the state to reserve 90 per cent jobs in the unskilled and semi-skilled category, up to 60 per cent in skilled category and 30 per cent for the supervisory and managerial cadre while giving them the option to fill up the post of senior executives from the open market.
It may be noted that in the steel sector, Posco India's MoU which expired on June 22 this year, is yet to be renewed. While the Industrial Promotion and Investment Corporation of Orissa Ltd (Ipicol) had recommended the renewal of the MoU with Posco India for two years, the state steel and mines department did not agree to the proposal, stating that the project needed to be renewed for a longer period given the project's size and its scale of investment.
The state government had signed MoUs with 88 companies in sectors like steel, power, cement and auto components manufacturing in the past six years.
Industrial players in sectors like steel and mines, aluminium, power and cement who have signed MoU have employed 70 per cent of the people within the state in the jobs created by them.
As many as 24,877 jobs have been created by the end of July this year by the MoU signed companies out of which 17439 people engaged are within the state while the remaining 7438 have been recruited from outside the state.
Amongst the 17439 people engaged by the companies, 6124 are from the district where the project is coming up with the balance 11031 people being hired from other parts of the state.
Out of the overall figure of 24877 jobs, steel and mines sector has the lion's share at 21596 followed by aluminium at 2605, power at 324 and cement at 154.
The most number of jobs have been created by Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd (2235).
Out of 2235 jobs, the people within the state have bagged 1120 jobs.
In the aluminium sector, Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL) has generated the most number of jobs (2487) at its aluminium refinery unit at Lanjigarh and smelter plant at Jharsuguda. Out of the total employment generated, 1573 people engaged are from the state.
Similarly, Aditya Aluminium has generated 97 jobs so far for its proposed refinery and smelter projects at Rayagada and Jharsuguda respectively.
In the steel sector, Shyam DRI Power Ltd, Sree Metaliks Ltd and Bhushan Steel Ltd have created more than 1000 jobs so far.
