Odisha cabinet approves eight policies to attract investment

Bhubaneswar: Ahead of Make in Odisha conclave scheduled to begin on November 30, the Odisha cabinet on Tuesday approved eight policies to attract investments in various sectors to the state.

These are MSME development policy, food processing policy, renewable energy policy, handloom policy, apparel policy, tourism policy, pharmaceutical policy, and biotechnology policy.

The state government will provide various incentives to the investors to set up their projects in the state.

Under the MSME policy, the state government has enhanced capital investment subsidy to new units from 10% to 25% subject to the upper limit of Rs 1 crore. In order to the growth of MSM enterprises in industrial backward districts,  an additional capital investment subsidy of 5% will be provided.

The food processing policy proposes to set up mega food parks at strategic locations. The policy provides 25% capital investment subsidy limiting to a maximum of Rs 2 crore in ‘general’ area.

The capital investment subsidy to SC, ST and women entrepreneurs and those setting up food processing industry in the industrial backward districts is admissible at a higher rate of 33%, said the chief secretary.

The state government also approved a handloom policy to promote entrepreneurs and enterprise development in the sector. The government would provide credit linkages to entrepreneurs for setting up units in the state.

The tourism policy aims to develop Odisha as the ultimate tourist destination and to place it prominently on the domestic and international tourism map. It emphasizes on aggressively promoting beach tourism, Buddhist tourism, heritage tourism, rural tourism, cruise tourism, knowledge tourism and health tourism.

The government has identified 2900 acres of land for the tourism sector for easy availability of land to the entrepreneurs at various tourist locations. The state government would provide special incentives to the investors for their projects in KBK and Kandhamal and Gajapati districts.

The pharmaceutical policy provides grants of 50% of the total cost or ceiling of Rs 10 crore for development of greenfield pharmaceutical clusters, parks.

The biotechnology policy shall act as a catalyst in the economic growth of the state creating models for scalability and replicability across the state resulting in higher investments and large-scale employment opportunities in the state.

The state aims to emerge amongst the top five ‘Bio-tech Hubs’ in India for biotechnology investments, through strategic partnership initiatives, industrial infrastructure development, investment assistance and policy interventions.