The investors meet hosted by Odisha at the Make in India week attracted a lot of attention with high profile representatives of India Inc sharing the dais with chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who highlighted the steady growth of the state in the last decade along with the abundance of minerals and skilled manpower in the state.

Along with the Mr. Patnaik, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman Aditya Birla Group; Y C Deveshwar, chairman, ITC Ltd; Shashi Ruia, chairman, Essar Group; G B S Raju, business chairman, GMR Group ; T.V. Narendran, managing director, Tata Steel and Rajesh Adani, managing director, Adani Enterprises were present on the dais.

Interestingly, the state managed to get investment commitments of around Rs. 40,000 crore during the event.

While L&T has plans to invest Rs.12,000 crore in Odisha to set up an integrated alumina plant in Rayagada, ITC plans to set up a food processing plant at an investment of Rs. 800 crore. NALCO has also committed an investment of Rs. 20,550 crore for expanding their plant at Damanjodi and setting up at aluminium park at Angul.

Amitabh Kant, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Government of India and Bibek Debroy, member, NITI Aayog were also on the dais.

"For one and a half decades, Odisha has shown remarkable growth, commitment to progress along with political stability. We are growing at 8% and are poised to grow at 12% by 2020," said Mr. Patnaik while delivering the keynote address.

To achieve this growth, the state is expanding the industrial base and the government has started a new initiative called 'New Odisha Industrial Development Plan 2020' that has been unveiled on Monday, said the chief minister, adding that the plan will lead to investments totalling Rs. 2.25 lakh crore by 2020 that will also generate 10 lakh jobs.

Speaking on the occasion, Shailendra Roy, whole time director (power heavy engineering and defence), L&T said that the most notable investment of L&T in Odisha has been the development of Dhamra port, which is the largest deep-water port in eastern India.

Mr. Narendran said that Tata Steel's association with Odisha is over 100 years old when the state was not even created. "We have invested around Rs. 25000 crore over the years in the state," he said.

Meanwhile, to boost the startup ecosystem in the state, the government has tied up with TiE Silicon Valley, a U.S.-based non-profit organisation encouraging entrepreneurship, and OYO Rooms to set up a startup hub at Bhubhaneshwar.

The chief minister said that two per cent of the annual budget would go towards development of information technology in the state.

The chief minister also said that his government has decided to tap private enterprises for developing self-contained cities. "The aim is to create Odisha as a one-stop destination for industries and I'm confident that the industry would support," he said in his closing remarks.