By Bhavani Pani in Bhubanewar, September 18, 2015 :  Since 2007, Odisha, had been declaring Industrial Policy Resolutions [IPRs] every four years.

The last one, due in 2011 was declared in 2012 and notified in 2013 and by 2014, not a single application made for drawing subsidies as per IPR 2011 had been cleared. And, the business community in the state and outside were not really looking forward to another ‘paper’ policy release.

However, they were in for a surprise and the 2015 IPR did throw up some pleasant surprises!

Odisha was as such on a high between 2005 and 2010 with massive investments coming into mega mineral based projects. Over 58 MOUs were signed during the period, mainly in power, steel, aluminium and ferro-alloy sectors.

By 2010-11, Odisha had emerged as the leader state in wooing huge investments worth around Rs 10 lakh crore.
However, with the era of ‘mega scam’ unfolded by 2010 and the nation went into a period of ‘policy paralysis’ which hit Odisha very badly neutralising its enthusiastic march of rapid industrialisation and job creation efforts. The ongoing and upcoming mineral, mining and mineral based projects in the state got badly hit on account of frequently changing regulations in land acquisition, environment clearances, industrial policies etc.

Odisha lost many major steel, aluminium, power, ferro-alloy, mining, port, education and infrastructure projects and fresh investments virtually dried up. Under the circumstances the third IPR (2011-2014) suffered the ignominy of never having really taken off.

The new 4th IPR (2015-2018) therefore needed a complete overhauling of priorities and implementation procedure. Focus and priorities had to be repositioned since the mineral industry led industrialisation had suffered enormous set back and did not help Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises [MSMEs] to come up in desired numbers to meet the projected demand of fresh employment generation.

Even before Odisha could assess the situation and begin damage control exercise, many other states marched ahead with IPRs focused on Manufacturing, Agro Industries, Tourism etc.

The 4th IPR of the state was therefore, had to be drafted under very adverse industrial and developmental conditions. However, it had the advantage of taking a close look at IPRs of other states where the development process had moved on, in-spite and despite the grim national scene.

The picture was getting clearer around 2012-13, when the work for drafting of the 4th IPR began. In their right wisdom, the concerned authorities in the state involved state based and national Industry and Commerce chambers and also domain specialists. Professional agencies were engaged to developing electronic aided information dissipation and policy implementation schemes.

By then, central govt had also launched the ‘Make in India’ program and the focus on Manufacturing had been made known to all states. All this and a growing realisation in the state administrative and legislative machinery that large scale mineral based industries had really not helped develop a large scale employment generating industrial base in the state, helped give the 4th IPR a new focus.

The 2015- 19 IPR clearly focuses on promotion of non-mineral and MSME sector in the state. For the first time the launching of the IPR coincided with simultaneous release of ‘notification’ for implementation. In keeping with the national program, a web site and mobile apps was launched which provided extensive on line information for prospective investors to access on line information on state policy and procedures, land bank data and infrastructure linkages etc.

The IPR 2015 has raised hopes of an up-turn in the economic and industrial development of the state. Should the follow up action support the ‘good’ intentions of IPR-2015, there are good chances that state would once again emerge as a favoured investment destination for both national and international investors and Odisha would be able to achieve its poverty eradication targets in the years to come.