Bill passed to give legal support to Idco to take up social projects

Bhubaneswar: The assembly on Tuesday passed the Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (amendment) Bill (OIIDC), 2020, to provide legal support to state government agency Idco to take up social infrastructure projects like power supply, sewerage and effluent treatment.
With the amendment, the state government also included projects like educational institutions, university, hotels, multiplexes, commercial complexes, healthcare facilities, entertainment facilities, resorts, golf courses, sports complexes, tourism project as social infrastructure.
Though Idco was set up under the OIIDC Act, 1980, for the purpose of securing and assisting in the rapid and orderly establishment of industries in the industrial areas, it has subsequently ventured into construction and other projects in the industrial sector.
At present, Idco has been functioning as the nodal agency of the state government in sharing various development activities sponsored by the Centre for establishment of industrial regions like petroleum, chemicals and petrochemicals investment region (PCPIR) at Paradip, National Investment Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ) at Kalinganagar, Aluminium Park at Angul, Plastic Park at Paradip and Sea Food Park at Deras.
The amendment also has provision to acquire land in accordance with the provision of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Re-settlement Act, 2013.
“The state has emerged as a pioneer in implementing the programmes like Make in India and ease of doing business launched by the Centre to accelerate industrial development. Idco has to play a pivotal role in implementing such programmes in providing infrastructural facilities to propel investment proposals in the state,” said industries minister Dibya Shankar Mishra, while introducing the bill.
The assembly also passed two other bills — the Factories (Odisha amendment) Bill, 2020, and the Contract Labour (regulation and abolition) (Odisha amendment) Bill, 2020 — to replace the ordinances, promulgated earlier. While the factories law was amended to allow women employees in factories to work beyond 10 pm, the contract labour legislation aims at labour reforms.