State Level Facilitation Cell clears 98 projects worth Rs 1.73 Lakh crore

BHUBANESWAR: The State Level Facilitation Cell (SLFC) formed to assist companies for actualising investments in Odisha has cleared 98 projects worth Rs 1,73,270 crore in the last two years, Industries Minister Niranjan Pujari said here on Friday.

Some of the big ticket projects cleared by SLFC since its inception in August 2015 include JSW Steel’s 10 MT steel plant with an investment of Rs 50,000 crore at Paradip, Deepak Fertiliser’s unit with an investment of Rs 1,750 crore at Paradip and expansion of Paradeep Phosphate’s fertiliser unit at an investment of Rs 9,459 crore.

Addressing the 100th SLFC meet, Pujari said the State Government strongly believes in building a conducive environment for potential investors and existing industries. “We all need to work together for making the State a preferred destination for industries,” he said.The facilitation cell took average time of 7.41 days to review and clear green category projects and 13.26 days for non-green projects.
As many as 201 grievances of several industries have also been resolved by SLFC during the period.
The Minister launched inclusion of legal metrology verifications in Central Inspection Framework (CIF) for making it more transparent and industry friendly. There are 4,637 industries which come under the framework.

Speaking on the occasion, Industries Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said the central inspection framework ensures that industries do not face any kind of difficulty during inspections. The verification can be done at the instance of the unit via newly launched legal metrology verification, which will also take care of online payment of fees.

Later, the Minister inaugurated a state-level workshop on ‘Ease of doing Business in Odisha’ where industry associations and entrepreneurs were apprised about various business reforms implemented to facilitate business in the State.

Chief Secretary AP Padhi said key reforms on property registration, labour, land bank and allotment have been implemented while building plan and many other reforms will be made soon. Additional Chief Secretary LN Gupta also spoke.