Mineral Sector Projects in Odisha

Introduction

1.1 Need for Industry

Rapid technological changes and innovations offer us a triumphant story of the modern world. The history of industrialization can also be termed as the story of the development of the world.

However, mapping industrialization with setting up of factories may not be entirely true, as in the seventeenth and eighteenth century there has been the production of goods and international trade even before the factories came up in England and Europe. Historians term this period of industrialization as proto-industrialization. In this period the traders from towns would induce artisans and peasants to produce good for the money and then sell those products in the international market at a higher profit.

It is often told that the dream of any war is to end all wars. However, this remains a distant dream and wars are fought one after another. Similarly, it is felt by many that development would improve human socio economic conditions and eliminate shortages. Born after the Second World War, the development paradigm has dominated social scientific thinking and international policy on a mass scale (McDowell, 1966).

1.2 Industrialization and investment

The key to industrial or economic growth is the flow of private capital. The flow of capital is encouraged by the process of liberalization. It is found that the process of liberalization has contributed to the economic growth of the world and the per capita earning of the world has increased from USS 614 to USS 4,908 in thirty years (Mabey & McNally, 1999). It is seen that the investment in Orissa by the public sector, during 2000-01 to 2010-11 has seen growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.3 % and the private sector investment during the same period has increased at a CAGR of 245 % (Bhargava, 2013)

These investments have taken place in mining, manufacturing (steel, aluminium, and chemicals), electricity (power generation and transmission), construction, irrigation, transport (road, railways, port, airport), communication and services (Tourism, IT & ITES), with power and mineral sectors leading the stage (Bhargava, 2013).

The major investors in mineral sector in Odisha includes the likes of Tata Steel, Bhushan Group, Jindal Group, Essar Steel, Hindalco Group, Adani and Vedanta. International conglomerates like Arcelor Mittal and POSCO have come for investment but have not been able to do so.

As per one article, 45 steel projects with capacity over 56 MT per annum and investment of about USS 45 billion were underway in Odisha. Four aluminium projects with more than 4 Million Tons per annum capacity and investment of approximately US$10 billion were also underway. M/s Indian Oil Corporation, a top end public sector company, has set up a fifteen million tons per annuum petrochemical project with an estimated investment of US Dollar 6 billion is a major achievement for the state in oil and petrochemical sector. Significant has also come to the state in the Services sector investments in Telecom and IT, has also been significant. The state has also seen significant investment in the area of construction, roads, housing projects and commercial complexes (Kumar, 2010).

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