Bizodisha Bureau Bhubaneswar, June 22: The Odisha government on Monday set an ambitious target to create additional three lakh jobs and woo new investments to the tune of Rs.1.73 lakh crore by 2019-20 in the state.

The move aims to arrest the ongoing fall in investment in industry sector in the state in the last couple of years.

It also has set a stiff target of 60 percent increase in the contribution of the manufacturing sector to Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and 25 percent increase in the employment through manufacturing by 2019.

The target was fixed on Monday at a meeting to review annual performance of industry department chaired by chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

Patnaik asked the department to prepare a plan to increase share of the manufacturing sector to 27 percent of the state’s gross domestic product comes.

Besides, he has asked the department to finalise the guidelines for the Special Economic Zone [SEZ] policy and Industrial Policy Resolution 2015 to attract investments to the state, officials said.

Industry Minister Devi Prasad Mishra said the industry department aimed at sustainable revenue generation, value addition and employment generation.

“The government has planned investment and employment generation in three manufacturing zones – Kalinganagar investment and manufacturing zone, Dhamra Port-based manufacturing zone, and Paradip manufacturing zone,” said Mishra.

“The government has completed the survey for creation of land bank of 1.12 lakh acres in the state,” the minister added.

The meeting also discussed various projects, including electronics system designing manufacturing (ESDM) park at Bhubaneswar, seafood park at Deras, handloom park at Ganjam, aluminium park in Rayagada and Angul, and ancillary steel industries in Jharsuguda and Sambalpur.