Following are extracted from his article in Economic Times.

  • The port town in Jagatsinghpur district, about 120 km from the state capital of Bhubaneswar, has already emerged as one of the country’s major investment hotspots by attracting investment in excess of Rs 3.5 lakh crore including the Rs 2, 74,134 crore Petroleum Chemicals and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) and the biggest FDI proposal by Posco to build a 12-million ton steel plant at an estimated cost of Rs 51, 000 crore.
  • The port town already boasts of major fertilizer manufacturers like IFFCO and Paradeep Phosphates Limited, a brewery along with central depot of Indian Oil and other small industries like Kargil Oil, Paradeep Carbon and a host of other units.
  • … an integrated Petroleum, Chemicals, and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) promoted by the state government on the lines of Pudong in China, Rotterdam in Europe and Houston in North America.
  • IOC is already coming up with 15 MMTPA grassroot refinery cum petrochemical complex five kilometer to the south of Paradeep Port at an estimated cost of Rs 25,646. For this, the state government has given incentives to IOC by exempting entry tax on crude oil and sales tax deferment for 11 years. The IOC already has got the required 3344 acres of land.
  • The Railways is also committed to boost connectivity in the Paradeep region which includes the 82-km Paradeep-Haridaspur broad gauge line, being taken up at an investment of Rs 577.78 crore. East Coast Railway (ECoR) has acquired 1,146 acres of private land out of the total of 1,653 acres of land required for the project. This project being implemented by Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) is scheduled for completion by March 2011.
  • The other projects in different stages of implementation Hydrate Pellets Ltd’s six lakh tone hydrate pelts plant at Rs 10,724 crore, Essar Steel Orissa Ltd’s six million ton steel plant at Rs 10,721 cr], Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. (DFPCL’s three lakh mtpa green-field complex for Nitric Acid and Ammonium Nitrate at Paradeep at a cost of Rs 400 crore NSL Sugar Ltd’s sugar plant at Rs 800 crore and other mini projects.

One other thing that is not elaborated in the article is that as part of the PCPIR several things will be funded by the state government and several other things will be funded by the central government.The following is excerpted from an older article in Business Standard.

  • “The Centre would provide this money in two phases. While Rs388 crore would come in the first phase of the project, the balance Rs328 crore would be provided by the Government of India in the second phase”
  • … six-laning of NH-5 (A), building a greenfield coastal corridor, construction of all-new greenfield road from Bhubaneswar to Paradip and upgradation of port infrastructure.
  • The six-laning of the NH-5 (A) will be taken up in the second phase of the PCPIR project at a cost of Rs76 crore. The greenfield coastal corridor will involve an expenditure of Rs410 crore out of which Rs 264 will be invested in the first phase while the remaining expenditure of Rs146 crore will be incurred in Phase-II.

  • The construction of all-new greenfield road from Bhubaneswar to Paradip will be taken up at a cost of Rs190 crore while Rs40 crore would be provided by the Centre for upgradation of port infrastructure.

  • Meanwhile, the Orissa government has committed an expenditure of Rs1796 crore on infrastructure development for the PCPIR hub. Out of the envisaged expenditure of Rs1796 crore, Rs 754 crore will be spent on development of arterial roads, Rs 465 crore on water supply, Rs 410 crore on power distribution and Rs136 crore on canal upgradation.


To match these industrial investments in Paradip, the Odisha government needs to make plans for a university, an engineering college and a medical college for this area. Similar plans need to made for the other upcoming industrial hubs at Angul,  Kalinganagar, Jharsuguda and Rayagada; as well as the only existing industrial area of Rourkela which neither has a medical college nor has a regular university.