BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Tuesday proposed the Tata Group to set up a defence manufacturing cluster at Naraj in Cuttack district over the 871 hectares of land already in possession of Tata Power.The proposal was mooted by chief minister Naveen Patnaik during his meeting with Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran here at the state secretariat, said an official statement issued by the chief minister’s office.Naveen suggested that the Tata Advanced Systems should consider developing the defence manufacturing cluster in Odisha As the Tata group is expanding the Kalingnagar facility, the chief minister proposed Chandrasekaran to consider developing a steel downstream cluster at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district with provision of liquid metal.Tata Steel, the country’s largest steel producer plans to add five million tonne (MT) capacity to its existing plant at Kalinganagar with an investment of Rs 25,000 crore, official sources said.“I had the opportunity to visit the plant in Kalinganagar, as you know we are expanding an additional five million tonnes to go to 8 million tonnes at Kalingangar,” Chandrasekaran told reporters after the meeting.In March, Tata Steel won a bid to acquire bankrupt Bhushan Steel Limited in Dhenkanal district for Rs 35,000 crore.“I also had the opportunity to visit our new plant Bhushan Steel. I am very happy to say that integration process is going well. Over all our investment has significantly increased in Odisha, it is a significant presence for us,” said Chandrasekaran.Naveen, during the meeting also put forth several other proposals including an E-vehicle project by Tata Motors and a manufacturing unit by Tata Chemicals at Paradip.The chief minister also requested more investments in manufacturing sector at Tata special economic zone at Gopalpur in Ganjam to generate employment.As the state government has been developing World Skill centre here, Naveen requested Tata Industries to associate with it as industry partner which will help to deliver world-class skill to the state’s youth.Also, Naveen asked the Tata Sons chairman to expedite the process of setting up of 500-bed super speciality hospital at Sitalapalli in Ganjam.According to the official statement, Chandrasekaran said Tata Sons would consider all the proposals of the chief minister and try its best to realize the proposed projects.Among others, Naveen requested to step up campus placements in different government engineering colleges, industrial training institutes ( ITI ) and polytechnics. He also urged Tatas to establish workshops in some selected government ITIs.

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