In a significant development, the proposal by the government of Odisha for inclusion of Odisha Economic Corridor (OEC) under the National Industrial Corridor Development Program has been approved by the National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT). The Board of Trustees has agreed for initiation of the project development activities for the priority clusters identified for implementation under Phase-1 in the two nodes based on focused sectors identified by the State Government.
OEC will be a part of the northernmost stretch of the East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC), the first coastal economic corridor planned in the country. The corridor has a potential to generate over Rs 4 lakh crore of manufacturing output, Rs 81 thousand crore of investment and an additional 8 lakh direct jobs by 2025.
Two nodes have been prioritized in the influence region of the transport network (NH-16) through assessment of factors including land availability, highways, large cities, existing industrial infrastructure and port. 100 km on each side of NH-16 has been taken as the Corridor Influence Area. Node-1 called the GBK node includes 6 clusters with 6,153 acres land area in Gopalpur, Bhubaneswar, Kalinganagar industrial areas of the Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttack and Jajpur districts. Node-2 called the PKDS node includes 8 clusters with 10,558 acres of land area in the Paradip, Kendrapada, Dhamra and Subarnarekha industrial areas of the Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, Bhadrak and Balasore districts. New land parcels to be added during the development phase of the nodes.