By Nageshwar Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, December 1, 2016 : Odisha once again is becoming the key investment destination in eastern India with a host of corporate houses announcing Rs 60,000 crore on the sidelines of Make in Odisha conclave that began on Wednesday.

Earlier in the days chief minister Naveen Patnaik had a one-on-one interaction with 19 major investors who’d expressed interest to invest. Many existing investors like Tata, Adani, Aditya Birla, ITC, Vedanta have also indicated fresh investments. Patnaik also laid foundation stone of some of the projects on Thursday.

The corporate heads hailed the Odisha government – headed by chief minister, Naveen Patnaik as the pro-active, politically stable and investor friendly state, industry captains and evinced keen interest to pump in fresh investment in the state.

Speaking at the Conclave, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani announced fresh investment of Rs 15,000 crore on a slew of projects in the state which promise to provide livelihood to about 10,000 people.

Besides a long coastline, rivers like Mahanadi and Brahmani makes Odisha one of the most fertile states in India and with its mineral wealth spanning coal, iron ore, bauxite, chrome ore, and manganese, few states can match nature’s generosity on the state.

He said the Dhamra Port was a profitable venture within the first 12 months of taking over by the Adani Group. The company has built and commissioned a massive new berth of 15 million tonne capacity. As a result, the port has grown its cargo handling capacity by 51 per cent.

“By March 2017, we will add yet another berth in Dhamra and double the capacity of the port to 50 million tonnes all achieved in a period of less than three years,” he said addin that the port has completed the construction of two million tonnes of barge berth capacity required to enable movement of coal through the National Inland Waterway 5, he said.

Given Dhamra Port’s strategic location, this would be a game changer in transportation of coal across the Brahmani River and carry coal from the Talcher region to Dhamra, Adani said.

This apart, the Group has also started the work required to construct a LNG terminal of 5 MMT capacity entailing an investment of Rs 5,200 crore and a LPG terminal of 2.5 MMT capacity, which would see an additional investment of Rs 2,300 crore, he said.

Adani also disclosed that his company is keen to promote a huge industrial park like the one at Mundra, in Gujarat – the largest private port in the country. Adani Wilmar would be setting up a 2,500 tonne per annum edible oil refinery at Dhamra port, for Rs 2,300 crore. Crude oil for this would be sourced from Indonesia and Malaysia.

“As per the master plan we have in mind, we anticipate Dhamra having 35 berths with total port capacity of a mammoth 315 million tonnes. This can make Dhamra the largest port and port-based industrial cluster in India,” Adani added saying that Dhamra Port will be the gateway to ASEAN countries.

The next speaker at the Conclave, Adventz Group chief S K Poddar announced an investment of Rs 9,000 crore on expansion of a urea ammonia unit. He said after taking over of Paradeep Phosphates from the Government of India in 2002, the group had wiped out its previous accumulated loss and turned in a positive net worth of Rs 1,200 crore.

Describing Odisha a natural selection for industries, Satish Pai, managing director of Aditya Birla Group-owned Hindalco Industries announced Rs 4,000 crore of new investment for the state for capacity addition at Aditya Aluminium’s rolling mill at Hirakud, UltraTech’s cement grinding unit at Jharsuguda, recommencing Essel Mining’s captive mines and expanding the retail footprint of its apparel business. Besides, it would set up a 30 MW solar plant in the state.

He said the Group had already invested Rs 30,000 crore in Odisha, of which Rs 27,000 crore had gone into Hindalco’s operations.

Tata Steel managing director for India and Southeast Asia, T V Narendran recalled the company’s long association with Odisha saying that it proposed to invest Rs 15,000 crore to scale up capacity at its three mtpa greenfield steel plant at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district to eight mtpa.

“We will take the approval of the board (of directors) in six months. Investments worth Rs 3,000 crore are already under various stages of execution,” Narendran added.

Vedanta group chairman Anil Agarwal said his company has lined Rs 20,000 crore of investment over the next three years. Of this, Rs 12,000 crore is proposed to be invested on the Lanjigarh alumina refinery, to raise its capacity from two mtpa to five mtpa, and to remove bottlenecks at its smelting unit in Jharsuguda. The capacity of the smelter is to be expanded to two mtpa, from 1.7 mtpa.

However, bauxite supplies to the Lanjigarh refinery would be key to facilitate this investment.

The Group also plans to invest Rs 8,000 crore on a ‘world class university’ at Puri, Agarwal said adding that the Vedanta Foundation promoting the University would abide by the Supreme Court’s view the land would not be used for “commercial purposes.

Diversified group ITC’s operation head Sanjiv Puri said it will set up an integrated consumer goods facility and a five star hotel in Odisha at an investment of Rs 800 crore.

The integrated consumer goods manufacturing facility is being built on an area of 700,000 sq ft at Khordha district in Odisha. The firm will roll out ITC’s food brands like Aashirvaad, Bingo, Sunfeast, YiPPee! from the unit, a company statement said. Besides, the group is also setting up a 110 room five star hotel in Bhubaneswar under its WelcomHotel brand, it said adding that the facility would be completed in 30 months.

“ITC’s investment in the processed foods sector in Odisha will add significant value to the state’s agricultural potential. ITC believes that food processing sector can make a multi-dimensional contribution to the state by enhancing competitiveness of food value chain, encouraging sustainable agriculture, reducing agri-wastages and helping create livelihoods along the entire value chain,” Puri added.

Naveen Patnaik inaugurating Shahi Exports Apparel Manufacturing unit at Manceswar

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages CEO T Krishna Kumar announced an investment of Rs 500 crore for the state in the next three years.

JSW Steel chairman and managing director, Sajjan Jindal announced to set up a large steel plant but did not spell out the investment figure.

Essar Group chief Shashi Ruia proposed to expand capacity of its Odisha iron ore pellet plant to 12 mtpa and said it would shortly commence mining from the ore block it bagged via auction.