Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday urged the Tata Group to set up a Defence Manufacturing Cluster at Naraj during a meeting with Tata Sons Chairman Mr Natarajan Chandrasekharan. Tata Advanced Systems may consider to develop this cluster on the 871 hectares of land at Naraj in possession of Tata power, the CM suggested.

In fact Odisha has become a focus state of Tata Steel with over Rs 60,000 crore investment in Kalinga Nagar green field steel project which is to expand from existing six million ton to 8 mt and buying the Bhusan Steel plant at over Rs 35,000 crore. Put together the steel making capacity of Tata’s in Odisha will be around 12 mt.

Sensing that the company has high stakes in the state, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik took the opportunity of a curtsy call by Mr Chandrasekharan to impress upon him for a defence manufacturing cluster on the land provided to Tata Power which has shelved its proposed power project.

The Chief Minister also suggested that the company consider developing a Steel Downstream Cluster at Kalinga Nagar with provision of liquid metal. He put forth other proposals including an E-Vehicle project by Tata Motors, a manufacturing unit by Tata Chemicals at Paradeep and requested more investments in manufacturing sector at Tata SEZ and DTA area at Gopalpur to generate employment.

Mr Patnaik proposed the Tata Industries participate in the World Skill Centre project as an Industry partner to deliver world-class skill to the State’s youth. He also requested to step up campus placements in different Government Engineering Colleges, ITIs and Polytechnics.

Work on the 500 bedded Super Speciality Hospital at Sitalapalli in Ganjam district needs to be expedited, stated the CM. He urged Mr Chandrasekharan that Tata AIG should expedite the payment of Crop Insurance claims to the farmers of the State.

Mr Chandrasekharan who had visited the Bhusan Steel plant and the Kalinga Nagar plant earlier on Tuesday said Tata Sons would consider all the proposals of the Chief Minister. He told reporters that it was a curtsy call and the first with the CM since he took over as the Chairman of the Tata Sons Limited.

The company, he said planned to expand the capacity of the Kalinganagar plant from the existing 6 MTPA to 8 MTPA. The Bhushan Steel though has a 5.6 MTPA capacity but they managed to produce only 3 MTPA. He said within an year the company planned to take the production capacity of the Bhushan Steel plant to 5.6 MTPA.