Following are excerpts from a report in Business Standard.

While MindTree expects to kick off construction work on its Rs 200-crore development centre in the city by June this year, ICICI Bank, which had sought an extension of two years for its Rs 600-crore eastern regional hub, has been asked by the state IT department to start construction work by April.

… MindTree, a global IT and R&D services company, co-headquartered in Bangalore and Somerset in New Jersey (US), had entered into an MoU with the Orissa government in March 2006 for setting up its software development centre spread over 30 acres.

…  MindTree would initially recruit about 1,000 software professionals and eventually ramp up its headcount to 6000. Its development centre in Bhubaneswar will focus on R&D, consultancy and software development.

ICICI bank’s eastern regional hub would have a built-up area of 1.5 million sq ft and it will have a pool of 15,000 employees in the long-run. The project is to be developed in phases over a period of six to seven years.

Genpact Limited, the BPO (business process outsourcing) arm of the US-based General Electric which had announced a Global Delivery Centre in the city has submitted a fresh building plan to the Bhubanewar Development Authority (BDA).

“We are pursuing Genpact’s case with the BDA to expedite the company’s project”, the official said.

Genpact’s centre in the city will have a total built-up area of 7 lakh sq ft. Initially, Genpact would hire 500 people for running its operations and eventually, the headcount will be scaled up to 3,000.

On Raheja Corporation’s IT park, he said, land has been alloted but the company is yet to take physical possession of it. Mumbai-based K Raheja Corporation proposed to set up an IT park in the city over an area of 30 acres at an investment of about Rs 250 crore. This IT park would have a total built-up area of 10 lakh sq ft and it was scheduled to be commissioned within three years. The project would generate employment for nearly 20,000 people.

K Raheja Corporation had signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding) with the Orissa government in May 2008 and the IT park was scheduled to be commissioned within three years.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard by Nageshwar Patnaik.

… All these projects will create employment opportunity for nearly six thousand people

The investment proposal includes setting up of five new thermal power projects and expansion of two existing power plants.

.. The new power projects cleared by the committee include 3200 MW plant National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) at Dharanipali in Sundergarh district (Rs 18,000 crore), 2000 MW plant by Orissa Power Transmission Corporation Limited (OPTCL) at Rengali (Rs 8,250 crore), 1320 MW plant by BGR at Bhapur in Nayagarh district (Rs 6,300 crore), 1980 MW plant by JR Power Gen Private Limited at Bainda in Angul district (Rs 8,000 crore) and 1320 MW plant by Adhunik Power Company Limited at Birmaharjpur in Sonepur district (Rs 8000 crore)

The existing projects which were given permission to go for expansion are Chambal Infrastructure Limited (from 1200 MW to 1320 MW and GMR Limited (1050 MW to 1400 MW).

Chambal Infrastructure Limited – which has its plants at Siria in Dhenkanal district will invest Rs 5000 crore while GMR Limited will put in Rs 6000 crore at its Kamalanga plant in the same district.

Following was obtained from a pdf file at the IDCO web site.

The Orissa State Road Project web site is at http://osrp.gov.in/index.htm. It has a nice detailed map of roads in Orissa. The following details is from its "About Us" page.

The State Govt. during January 2005 had proposed to avail loan from World Bank and JBIC (Japan Bank for International Co-operation) for improvement of the state roads. The proposals were sent to the World Bank and JBIC through the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Department of Economic Affairs, Govt. of India.

The proposals were approved by the SLPMC on EAP (State Level Project Monitoring Committee on External Aided Project), chaired by the Chief Secretary, Orissa, on 20.01.05. The preliminary proposals included 27 nos. of road project under World Bank Scheme and 14 road projects under JBIC scheme. The project cost proposed under JBIC was Rs. 715.34 Crores for 805 Km of state road and that under World Bank Rs. 1642.44 Crores for 2197 Km of state road.

The Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India gave clearance to the proposed World Bank project in their letter dated 07.04.2005 addressed to the State Govt. (Finance Department). However, the proposed JBIC road project has not yet been approved / cleared by the Govt. of India.

After clearance from Govt. of India, a full identification mission from the World Bank comprising Dr.Binyam Reja (Task Team Leader), A.K. Swaminathan (Sr. Transport Specialist), Mohammad Hassan (Sr. Social Development Specialist), and Ernst Hunning (Institutional Development Consultant) visited the State from April 14-22, 2005 to initiate the preparation of the proposed Orissa State Roads Project (OSRP). The mission met with concerned officials of the Government of Orissa (GOO) and senior management of the Orissa Works Department (OWD), and carried out field visits to some of the proposed roads.

During the April 2005 World Bank Identification Mission, it was agreed that, detailed project preparation for the proposed road network shall commence in a phased manner in three phases i.e Phase-I, Phase-II & Phase-III ( Para -11 & Para-27 (b) , (e) : April 2005 Aide Memoir of World Bank).

The World Bank team had discussed with the Finance Department for Plan provisions and necessary counterpart funding. After a detail discussion, the World Bank had agreed to:

                a.         Fund a Project for improvement Road infrastructure amounting to Rs. 1200 Cr. Out of which state has to bear Rs. 200 Cr as counterpart funding. Total World Bank loan ceiling shall be US$ 225 Million.

                b.         High density road corridors having sufficient economic viability of about 1200  1400 Kms shall be included in the project.

                c.         Balance roads shall be identified after carrying out a network analysis and economic viability from the balance 3700 Kms of State Highways in other phases subsequently.

-     At the preliminary stage, identified about 825 Km of Road Stretches to be included in the

Phase-I of the Project. These roads were selected from the earlier dropped project for

which a full-scale techno-economic feasibility study was carried out.

1              Jagatpur  Salepur  Kendrapara  Chandbali  Bhadrak (SH9 & SH 9A) -152 Km

2              Bhadrak  Anandpur  Karanjia  Tongabilla (Jashipur) (SH 53 & SH 49) -142 Km

3              Khariar  Bhawanipatna  Muniguda  Rayagada  Kereda (SH 16, SH 6 & MDR 48b) -213 Km

4              Berhampur  Rayagada (SH 17 & SH 4)          -201 Km

5              Banarpal  Daspalla (MDR 18, MDR 18A & MDR 64)    -89 Km

6              Bhanjanagar -Aska (SH  7)               -38Km

-The World Bank however desired to check the viability of these roads by carrying out an updated techno-economic feasibility study.

-The project also includes identification of road stretches to be taken up in Phase  II of the project after carrying out network analysis for all State roads.

-Accordingly a domestic Consultant has been engaged from Govt of Orissa s own resources to carryout:

1              the Economic viability of Phase  I Roads;

2              the feasibility study & DPR of Phase  I Roads and

3              the network analysis of all State Highways of the State and identification of phase II roads.

   The World Bank Mission had:

-     Agreed for a Project for improvement of about 1200  1400 Km State Roads with a

Project size of Rs. 1480 Cr. (US$ 315 Million) with loan component of Rs. 1175 Cr. (US$

250 Million) and counterpart funding of Rs. 305 Cr. (US$ 65 Million);

The World Bank team again visited the state during September 2005 and inspected the roads proposed by the State Government to finalise roads for inclusion in Phase-I of the project (Para -12 & Para-14 : September 2005 Aide Memoir of World Bank) . During the said visit, some of the important roads proposed under JBIC assistance (Japan Bank for International Co-operation ) was included in the Phase-I list of World Bank roads after discussion with the World Bank, since the proposal submitted to JBIC was not cleared by the Dept. of Economic Affairs, Govt. of India.

1              Jagatpur  Salepur  Kendrapara  Chandbali  Bhadrak (SH9 & SH 9A) -152 Km

2              Bhadrak  Anandpur  Karanjia  Tongabilla (Jashipur) (SH 53 & SH 49) -138Km

3              Khariar  Bhawanipatna  Muniguda  Rayagada  Kereda (SH 16, SH 6 & MDR 48b) -223 Km

4              Berhampur  JK Pur _ Rayagada (SH 17 & SH 4)          -202 Km

5              Banarpal  Daspalla -Bhanjanagar -Aska (MDR 18, MDR 18A & MDR 64,SH  7)) -201Km

Approval from Hon ble Chief Minster to the roads proposed under Phase-I of World Bank scheme, covering a total length of 835 Km was obtained during October 2005, so as to proceed for detailed feasibility, economic analysis and other associated studies for Detailed Project Preparation and bidding. The major criteria used for selection of these roads were traffic volume, carriageway width, pavement conditions, economic activity in the influence area of the road, and connectivity of the roads.

Subsequently, after consideration of the Feasibility Study prepared by the DPR Consultant, the World

Bank Mission during their visit to the State in November 6-10, 2006 have decided to improve the

following roads in the Year  I of the Project.

1              Chandabali  Bhadrak  Anandapur

2              Khariar  Bhawanipatana

3              Berhampur  Taptapani

The World Bank had suggested to carryout detail economic viability and feasibility study for the 835 Km roads proposed under Phase-1 and Network Analysis of the entire State Highway Network ( covering about 3955 Km, leaving 835 Km Phase-1 roads ) for identification / prioritization of 1600 Km roads for improvement in Phase-II & Phase-III ( Para -11 & Para-27 (a), (e) : April 2005 Aide Memoir of World Bank). They had suggested to use the latest traffic and road condition survey data so as to assess which roads should fall under rehabilitation, and which roads should fall under upgrading in the detailed economic analysis.

Accordingly, economic viability and detailed feasibility study for the 835 Km roads proposed under Phase-1 and Network Analysis of the entire State Highway Network ( covering about 3955 Km, leaving 835 Km Phase-1 roads ) for identification / prioritization of 1600 Km roads for Phase-II & Phase-III were carriedout with help of a domestic consultants. M/S CEG Ltd from Rajasthan. The economic justifications of proposed road improvements under Phase-1 have been analyzed by using the life cycle costing economic tool ! Highway Development and Management Model (HDM-4) version 1.3" of World Bank. The economic evaluation has been carried out on the basis of incremental costs and benefits comparing the total net benefits with various alternatives. The economic indicators like NPV (Net Present Value) and EIRR ( Economic Internal Rate of Return) are then calculated. The final list of roads included in Phase-I alongwith summary of their techno-economic analysis with NPV, EIRR and ratio of NPV and cost etc. is shown at Annexure-I: The EIRR of each of the five corridors under Phase-1 varies from 30.53% to 17.28% with NPV of Rs 13172.8 million. It may be noted that the roads with EIRR more than 12% are considered financially viable under the World Bank loan.

 The World Bank had further intimated that the Project shall include

Update: Following are some additional details from a report in Pioneer.

• Amtech Auto Engineering would set up the complex at an investment of Rs 15,820 crore near Tangi- Choudwar. It would set up a two million tonne steel plant and 500 MW captive power plant in the complex. With this about 33,000 people will get both direct and indirect employment.

  It may be mentioned here that Jamsedpur-based RSB Trasmissions (I) Ltd, one of India’s leading auto components manufacturers, is coming up with an auto complex at Mania in Cuttack. RSB Transmission will invest Rs 430 crore in the project.

• The committee also approved JK Cement’s one million tonne capacity plant on the road between Athagrah and Choudwar.
• BOC would set up an air separation plant at an investment of Rs 434 crore in Rourkela. It would produce oxygen, nitrogen and argons.
• Bijaya Ferro Power Private Limited would set up a power plant at Keshinga in Kalahandi with an investment of Rs 550 crore. It would take water from Tel river to produce 120 MW power.
• Ind-Bharat’s proposal to enhance its power production capacity has also got the nod of the committee. It would set up its plant at Jharsuguda with an investment of Rs 3,300 crore.
• Facor would set up its captive power plant at Rahandia near Bhadrak.
• Due to shortage of water, few plants have also changed their sites. Odisha Cement Power Plant (OCL) has shifted its plant site from Mania to Rajgangpur.
• Jinadal Stainless Steel would set up its plant in Luni instead of Gajatara in Dhenkanal.
• Kalinga Energy Power Limited would set up its plant at Jharsuguda instead of Sambalpur.
• Scwal Brewage would set up its plant at Baranga instead of Choudwar at a cost of Rs 193 crore.
• The Rs 1,320 crore Sahara Power project has shifted its plant to Ghantabahal from Turul.
• German-based Gaunteman Pipery would set up its plant beneficiation plant and pelatisation plant. The beneficiation plant would come up at Barbil and the pelatisation plant at Dhamra. Around 1,605 crore would be invested in the project.
• Aditya Alumina’s proposal to enhance its production from one million tonne to 1.5 million tonne. It would also enhance its power plant from 650 MW to 900 MW.

Following is an excerpt from Orissadiary.

The projects of Adhunic Metalics and Jindal Stainless Steel at Sundargarh and Kalinganagar, respectively have been approved. The SWCLC has also given its green signal for an air-separation plant. Projects, involving Vijay Ferrochorme and Power Pvt Ltd and Adhunic Power plant have been cleared.

Amtech Metals would establish the integrated auto-complex, first of its kind in the state. Moreover, an auto-park, steel and power plant would also be established in the complex. The cost of the entire project has been pegged at Rs 15,820 crore. All the projects are expected to provide direct and indirect employment opportunities to nearly 47,000 and 1.5 lakh people, respectively apart from bolstering the socio-economic conditions in those regions where the proposed projects would come up, state Industries Secretary, Sourabh Garg said.

Tathya has some details on the Adhunik group’s project. Following are some excerpts:

Adhunik Power & Natural Resources Limited (APNRL) has proposed to invest Rs.3883.40 crore for the 4×250 MW power plant in Birmaharajpur in Sonepur district.

… Adhunik Metaliks Limited (AML), another member of the Group has proposed to set up Down Stream Park for stainless and special products with an investment of Rs.286 crore.  … downstream industries in hot-rolling, cold-rolling utensils, kitchen and hardware.  AML has also proposed for stainless steel pipes and alloys, which received the nod.
The park will be set up at Kumarmunda in a 300 acre area in Sundargarh district.

AML is setting up steel plant at Kumarmunda with a capacity of 0.41 million ton per annum (MTPA).

Tathya has also some details on the JSL project. Following are some excerpts.

JSL Limited posed a proposal to set up a Super Critical Thermal Power Station of 1320 (660X2) megawatt capacity, which has been cleared in the meeting. The Rs.4090 crore Greenfield project will be set up at Luni in Dhenkanal district.

Most importantly JSL, which is setting up a 3.20 million ton per annum (MTPA) capacity stainless steel plant at Kalinga Nagar has proposed to set up Stainless Steel Park (SEZ) with an investment of Rs.740 crore.  … The park will promote auto components, kitchen & life style, light engineering, white goods, cold rolling, pipes and tubes, and service centre. 300 acres of land for the park is needed for the park, which will have man power requirement of more than 2000, said sources. JSL plant is likely to produce stainless steel by end of 2010 and the park is also to be completed by the same time reveal the SLSWCA Report.

The above two downstream park proposals are most likely due to the recent government focus on those aspects, before giving mining leases. The govt. needs to make sure that the down stream parks indeed materialize as proposed.

Update: Expressbuzz also reports on this.

Following is from today’s Dharitri.

From the above, and its actions in the past, it seems that Orissa government’s future plan in terms of airports are:

• Make an international airport in Bhubaneswar. (Shifting to the new location will take another 10 years.)
• Make an airport in Jharsuguda to cater for Bargarh-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda-Rourkela belt: Will take 2-3 yrs to be operational.
• Plan for an airport in Jeypore: Will take 8-10 years to be operational
• Plan for an airport in Rasgovindpur (near Jaleswar, close to Balasore and Baripada): Will take 8-10 years to be operational

Couple of implications of the above are: Berhampur and Rourkela may not get functional airports in the near future (say next 10 years) as they are close to airports at Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda respectively. The overall airport situation in Orissa in 10 years will be as follows:

Now lets analyze how feasible the airports at Jeypore and Rasgovindpur will be.

• Jeypore: It is 258 kms from Visakhapatnam by Rail and 224 kms by road. It is 378 kms from Raipur; 450 kms from Jharsuguda and 520 kms from Bhubaneswar. It will be at the junction of two expressways and thus would be able to serve a large population in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Chhatisgarh.
• Rasgovindpur: It will be 30-40 kms from Balasore and Baripada; 70-80 kms from Digha; 80-90 kms from Kharagpur mostly on the expressway; 90-100 kms from Bhadrak mostly on the expressway, close to two expressways; 200kms from Kolkata airport;  210-220 kms from Tatanagar and 260-270 kms from Bhubaneswar. (Tatanagar being only 170 kms from Ranchi may not have a viable commercial airport for some time. Kharagpur being 120 kms from Kolkata will not have a viable commercial airport for a long time.) Thus it is far enough to the nearest airports in Bhubaneswar and DumDum (Kolkata), but at the same time there are enough population centers (Balasore, Baripada, Bhadrak, Digha, Kharagpur, Medinipur, Jhargram, Ghatsila) that will be close to this airport than the existing airports. So this aiport could serve a significant population in Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Following are excerpts from a report in expressbuzz.com.

the Government has distributed over 86,000 titles under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, by December second week. … close to 90 per cent of such titles is in 15 Maoist-affected districts. To be precise, 78,011 titles have so far been distributed in these areas.

… Forest Rights Committee received a good 3,22,590 claims of which 2,86,006 were verified and sent to gram sabhas.

The gram sabha-level committee approved 2,13,666 claims recommending them for titles to the sub-divisional-level committees which verified the cases and in turn sent 99,868 claims to the district-level committees (DLCs). Finally, the DLCs gave a green signal to 88,136 claims for issue of title.

… Of the 86,878 titles distributed yet, 13,321 titles are in Malkangiri alone. …

“It’s very important to note that 17 per cent of these title certificates so far distributed in the 15-affected districts are in Malkangiri alone which at the same time account for 25 per cent (31,570 acre) land.

… The trend shows in Koraput too. The number of title certificates so far been distributed stands at 13,203 which translates into 21,784 acre land. …

For other Maoist-affected districts like Gajapati, Rayagada, Sambalpur and Sundargarh, the rate of title distribution is very high.

… Interestingly, of 1,38,004 acre land for which title certificates have been distributed, 1,25,401 acre are in tribal districts of Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Nayagarh, Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Keonjhar, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Gajapati, Ganjam, Kandhamal, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur and Rayagada.

So far, 3,551 primitive tribal groups have been issued the titles accounting for over 5,559 acre land.

Following is an excerpt from a PTI news report.

The Orissa government today said it would set up a Forest Academy and expedite the process of giving forest land rights to people living in jungles.

"The Forest Academy will train officials in forest management and protect wild life with more professionalism," Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said at a conference of Divisional Forest Officers (DFO) here.

He said Orissa has 20 lakh hectares of poorly managed and degraded forests. Restoration of tree cover and increased vegetation on these degraded forests would make the government’s anti-poverty programmes successful.

The forest department had drawn up a plan for the next five years to give forest cover to ten lakh hectares of land.

Farm forestry and agro forestry had huge potential to improve the income of households, he said.

I was browsing through the web pages of the Project Report on Indian National Expressway Network at http://www.morth.nic.in/writereaddata/sublinkimages/Final_Report_Part13901147970.pdf

It is a masterplan for Indian National Expressway network developed by Craft consultants which was probably hired by the Ministry. The final version of it is dated November 2009.

In that report, they have mentioned feedback received from various states such as Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, MP, Pondicherry, Punjab, Rajasthan and UP. They have taken this feedback into account in making their masterplan.

Unfortunately, Orissa is missing in the list. In other words Orissa probably did not give them any feedback or if it did then not in time.

As a result there is no new expressway in Orissa during the first phase ending 2012. (The GQ is not counted as part of the first phase.) In the second phase  (2012-2017) Orissa has a very very small portion. Only in the third and 4th phase is there a substantial portion in Orissa. Even then there is no east west expressway connecting the capital area with western Orissa directly. Such connectivity between the capital area and western Orissa is extremely significant.

This is gross negligence on the part of Orissa to not have sent feedback to correct the above slights in the master plan for the expressways.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Expressbuzz.com.

The State Government has decided to extend the targeted rural initiative for poverty termination and infrastructure (TRIPTI) scheme to all the 314 blocks.

… TRIPTI is being implemented under the Mission Shakti through the self-help groups (SHGs).

The Chief Minister directed the officials to create the required infrastructure for implementation of the scheme across the State. The scheme is being implemented in 8,369 villages of 38 blocks of the State covering 12,54,607 rural families.

The World Bank-assisted scheme aims at capacity building and employment generation for the women with the help of women SHGs.

It has agreed to provide a loan assistance for the implementation of the scheme for five years.

Naveen also reviewed the progress of Mission Shakti. So far, 46.5 lakh women have become members of 3.87 lakh SHGs. According to a release from the Chief Minister’s Office, so far a loan assistance of Rs 1,367 crore has been provided to the SHGs in the State.

Official sources maintained that during 2008-09, one lakh SHGs from all the 30 districts were provided assistance of Rs 50 crore for creation of livelihood. Similarly, 1,614 SHGs in the KBK region (undivided Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput districts) were provided Rs 80.7 lakh for creation of job opportunities. SHGs in the urban areas were provided a loan assistance of Rs 2 crore during the year.

Besides, the SHGs have also dug 7,000 water bodies under the livelihood support programme for pisci-culture. The release claimed that 63 SHGs distributed LPGs under the Shakti Gaon Programme. The SHGs also implemented mid-day meal scheme in 34,000 schools and members of 7,000 SHGs worked as public distribution system (PDS) agents.

The State Government has signed an agreement with Reliance Fresh and ITC for marketing products from the SHGs. …

Many of you may have parents, friends and relatives who employ domestic workers in Orissa. Please convey them regarding the following rules on minimum wage so that they do not run afoul of the law.

Following is from a report in Business Standard.

The Orissa government has raised the minimum wages for the domestic helps. The minimum wage of such workers has been fixed at the same level as for the unskilled workers. So a domestic help will be entitled to get a basic wage of Rs 2340 per month.

Besides, they will be entitled to a special allowance (variable dearness allowance) from the date of fixation of minimum wages at the rate of Rs 20 per day for a block period of 2 years. It will be applicable for the domestic workers engaged in cleaning of vessels, washing of clothes, sweeping and swabbing floor, care of old and infirm persons, kitchen shopping, taking children to school among others. For implementation of this decision, employment of domestic workers has been made a part of the schedule of the minimum wages act, 1948.

They will have a six days week and an off day and will be paid 7 days wages for the 6 working days. If they work on any weekly off day, they will be paid double the daily wage. On the otherhand, the owners who employ domestic helps will pay 20 percent less if they provide 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner).The owners can’t deduct any amount from their wages for providing accommodation, water and electricity.

The labour and employment department of the Orissa government has come out with the required notification, sources said.

Many of them raised various Railways related issue. MPs Bhakta Das and Sanjay Bhoi raised the issue about a medical college and a national university in Bhawanipatna. Following are news items from Dharitri and Samaja on this.

Following is an op-ed piece from Samaja on the Railways issue.

Following is from Samaja.

The second article above says that the central government agreed to this terminal market due to Mr. Amarnath Pradhan’s proposal. I am not sure how true this is as the following call came out in 2008.

The official site http://rtiorissa.gov.in/ has tons of information.