Odisha ranked as Aspiring Leader by Invest India-World Bank

Bhubaneswar: In a development that is reflective of focused investment promotion efforts by Odisha over the past few years, the State has been ranked as an “Aspiring Leader” in a survey jointly conducted by Invest India and World Bank.

The survey assessed 21 Indian states in all.

Odisha scored 80% overall and has been placed in the “Aspiring Leaders” bracket along with 4 other states. The State’s score was significantly above the national average which was 70%.

The State scored highly across all the key parameters ranging from targeting investors (100%), facilitating investment (100%), mandate and organization (94%), strategy and marketing (83%), winning investment projects (83%), systems and technology (73%) and research and policy advocacy (70%).

Industries secretary Sanjeev Chopra said, “We are happy to be placed as an “Aspiring Leader” in the investment preparedness survey jointly conducted by Invest India and the World Bank. With increased competitive intensity to attract investments among India’s States, it is imperative for states like ours to become more proactive and sophisticated in its activities. We shall not rest on our laurels and strive to improve the State’s investment promotion preparedness further.”

Over the past few years, many initiatives have been taken by Odisha to enhance investment promotion preparedness.

These include institutionalizing State Level Facilitation Cell, appointment of sector-specific nodal officers to handhold investors, identification of 6 focus sectors, regular domestic and international investor outreach through roadshows in addition to a focused approach to facilitating investments through technology-enabled interventions like Government of Odisha – Single Window Portal for Investor Facilitation and Tracking (GO-SWIFT).

Odisha’s investor-friendly policies and the development of world-class infrastructure have received very positive feedback from investors across the country as we have been able to create an ideal business ecosystem for various sectors to flourish in the state.

“We have seen a significant rise in attracting manufacturing projects with more than 118 large projects approved with an employment potential of 1,28,572 in the past 4 years alone in the State,” said Chopra.

The average time taken for approval of the projects is also reduced to 20 days from the date of receipt of the completed project application. Odisha has also made significant strides in implementing the ease of doing business reforms with the compliance percentage going up significantly from 52.12% in 2015 to 97.83% in 2017.