Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Srikant Jena has sanctioned setting up of a Plastic Park in Odisha. The park will be established by a Special Purpose Vehicle, Paradeep Plastic Park limited at Siju village in Kujanga tehsil in Jagatsinghpur district.
The Central Government will provide a grant of `40 crore for the project out of which about `8 crore is being released shortly. The Plastic Park being set up near the IOCl Paradeep Refinery will have the necessary state-of-art infrastructure and facilitate investments by micro, small, medium and large units in the park which will create vast employment opportunities.
Previously, a Plastic, Polymer and Allied Cluster with all infrastructure facilities was approved and being set up at Baleswar at a project cost of `81.90 crore with a Government of India grant of `58.28 crore. About 60 per cent of the grant for the cluster has been released by the Central Government.
Recently, an Advanced Plastics Processing Technology Centre (APPTC) under the aegis of the Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology (CIPET) at Baleswar was inaugurated by Jena. The centre trains students through various diploma and postgraduate diploma programmes and skill-oriented vocational training programmes in plastics processing technologies. The centre will act as an employment conduit between the skilled students and the upcoming industry in Jagatsinghpur, Balesar and other places in Odisha.
Jena said that with these initiatives, opportunities would be provided to the entrepreneurs in and around Baleswar, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Paradip, and other areas of Odisha to set up new ventures, expand their operations and also compete globally.
He said the projects envisaged in the State would have vast social and economic benefits as they would create direct and indirect employment openings for thousands of people.