Bhubaneswar | May 13, 2016: The state government had to retrieve government land allotted to more than 200 industries for keeping it unused in the past four years since 2012, industries minister Debi Prasad Mishra told the assembly on Thursday. These include 100 plots in and around the state capital.
Mishra said the government issued show-cause notices to 977 allottees for not using the land. While 211 allotments were cancelled, court cases are pending for similar action in 60 other cases, he said. Though the minister's reply doesn't give the complete volume of land, it would run into more than 2,000 acre, government sources said.
The spurt in cancellations of land leases show how hundreds of industries failed to commission their projects on land allotted to them in the state. The cancellations include around 100 highly-priced plots in various industrial areas in and around Bhubaneswar alone. They are 44 in Mancheswar, 15 in Chandaka and one in Rasulgarh industrial areas and 40 in Khurda.
Major industries whose land leases were cancelled include 249 acre allotted for a solar power plant to Lanco Solar Private Limited in Cuttack district, Seashore Agricultural Promotion Company (69.81 acre in Nabarangpur) and Brady and Morris (14.4 acre) in Jajpur district, the minister said.
While land allotted to Lanco and Seashore were already retrieved to the landbank of Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco), the government's industrial land regulating agency, Brady and Morris has moved the Orissa high court against the government action.
The government has served show-cause notice on Rungta Mines for cancellation of 59 acre allotted to it in Dhenkanal district and SKOL Breweries Limited (46 acre).
The minister said the government has been actively considering implement Land Regulation-2015, proposed by Idco. The land allotment committee of Idco allots land to industries on the basis of recommendations of the district-level and state-level committees. A high-level land allotment committee under the chairmanship of chief secretary decides land allotments in industrial areas in Bhubaneswar Master Plan Region.
In 2015-16, the government approved 38 proposals through its single window system to establish industries at an estimated investment of Rs 47,846.16 crore, the minister said. The government spent Rs 4.12 crore in promotional activities to attract investment to the state, he added.
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)