Biodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, June 30, 2015 : Worried over the dip in the investment flowing to Odisha this year, the state government has put several projects on fast track thanks to e-PMS – an online project monitoring system put in place by the Narendra Modi government.

Officials said, many of the bottlenecks relating to land and forest diversion proposals have been removed and significant improvement has taken place in progress of the projects because of the e-PMS exercise. This became clear at a meeting here on Tuesday where Cabinet Committee Investment (CCI) Project Monitoring Group led by Dr V.P. Roy eviewed the progress of the ongoing mega projects.

Projects worth investment between Rs.100 crore to Rs.1000 crore are taken up under the e-PMS project. Some 32 projects in railway, national highway, steel and mines and power sector were reviewed at the high level meeting chaired by chief secretary, G C Pati.

The major projects in the review included Jharsuguda- Rengali railway doubling, Talcher-Bimlagarh new railway line, Angul-Sukinda new rail line project, Chandikhol-Duburi-Talcher section of national high way, Bhubaneswar-Puri N.H., Angul-Sambalpur toll road project, Cuttack-Angul toll road project, Biramitrapur-Barkot high way, Panikoili- Rimuli high way, IOCL project for LPG pipeline from Paradeep-Durgapur, IOCL pipe line project from Paradeep to Ranchi, Alumina refinery of NALCO at Damanjodi, Jharsuguda-Dharamjayagarh 756KV D/C transmission line, Angul-Jharsuguda 756 KV D/C line, Srikakulam pooling station-Angul 756 KV transmission line, Visa thermal power project, Sahara India Power Corporation thermal power plant in Bolangir district, PKTCL-Purtia Kharagpur transmission line, Monet Power, Tentulei Thermal Power project of NSL, Lanco Babandh Power limited, Odisha Ultra Mega Power Project, KVK Nilachal Power limited.

Principal Secretary in charge of Project Coordination Cell Pradeep Kumar Jena told media persons that with the introduction of e-PMS project, there have been significant progress in projects either stalled or slowed down due to regulatory issues relating to land acquisition and forest diversion proposals.

The e-PMS system tracks all stalled and ongoing investment projects. It includes facilities for online submission of projects, editing and updating of the projects, reviewing the projects and submission of details relating to bottlenecks, if any. The system has been made investor friendly and it automatically eliminates duplicate as well as inconsistent record keeping. Any private entrepreneur or any Department or Ministry willing to start a project can click on http//cabsec.gov.in or http//cadsec.nic.in. to get their login credentials.

In the review meeting Pati is understood to have set mile stones and time limits against each project. Pati also advised the project developers to expedite implementation of the projects. It has been decided in the meeting that the miscreants creating bottlenecks on the way of implementation will be dealt under the criminal laws. The chief secretary directed the project developers to videograph all such activities.

It was also decided to include Angul-Sambalpur toll road in high way corridor project and develop it to 4 lanes.

It may be mentioned that the state has substantially gone down this year with the state slipping to eighth position at the national level. From the level of 179 projects worth of Rs 3.15 lakh crore in 2010, the proposal had come down to mere 27 with investment to the tune of Rs 28,219 crore in 2014. What worried the state government is that the state has received only eight proposals worth Rs 2388 crore during January-April.