By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, July 2, 2018: Odisha has been ranked an “Aspiring Leader” in a survey of 21 states conducted by Invest India and World Bank.

Odisha scored 80 per cent marks overall as against a national average of 70 per cent and was placed in the “Aspiring Leaders” category along with four other states.

The state scored highly across all key parameters ranging from targeting investors (100 per cent), facilitating investment (100 per cent), mandate and organisation (94 per cent), strategy and marketing (83 per cent), winning investment projects (83 per cent), systems and technology (73 per cent) and research and policy advocacy (70 per cent).

“We are happy to be placed as an “Aspiring Leader” in the investment preparedness survey jointly conducted by Invest India and the World Bank. With increased competitive intensity to attract investments among India’s States, it is imperative for states like ours to become more proactive and sophisticated in its activities. We shall not rest on our laurels and strive to improve the State’s investment promotion preparedness further,” said principal secretary, industries of Odisha government, Sanjeev Chopra.

He said that over the past few years, many initiatives have been taken by Odisha to enhance investment promotion preparedness.

These include institutionalising state-level facilitation cell, appointment of sector-specific nodal officers to handhold investors, identification of six focus sectors, regular domestic and international investor outreach through roadshows, and focused approach to facilitating investments through technology-enabled interventions.

“We have seen a significant rise in attracting manufacturing projects with approval to more than 118 large projects that hold the potential of 1,28,572 jobs in the past four years,” said Chopra.

The average time taken for project approval has reduced to 20 days from the date of receipt of completed project application, he added.

Odisha has made strides in implementing ease-of-doing-business reforms, with compliance percentage going up significantly from 52.12 in 2015 to 97.83 in 2017.

The Naveen Patnaik government has set an ambitious target of attracting 2.5 lakh crore of fresh investments and generating 30 lakh job opportunities as part of Vision – 2025.

ASSOCHAM has ranked Odisha as the number one state in terms of investment implementation rate and the state is consistently ranked amongst the top 3 States in terms of live manufacturing investments in India. Odisha has registered a GSDP growth rate of 7.94 percent in 2016-17, surpassing the national growth rate of 7.1 percent.