Patna: Bihar on Monday made a strong pitch for a greenfield port facility in Odisha from the Centre where it can invest to create infrastructure that could be used to export various products of the state to places across the globe.

It has also asked for a dedicated space or capacity in the nearby ports in Bengal and Odisha, a dry port, as well as an inland container depot, including refrigerated container depot for transporting vegetable produce, in the state to boost exports.

Assistance has been sought from the Centre for setting up air cargo facilities at Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga and Bhagalpur for lifting agriculture produce from the state.

The demands were made at the third meeting of the Council for Trade Development and Promotion (CTDP) in New Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan chaired by Union minister for commerce and industry, Suresh Prabhu, at which different states presented their requirements and suggestions to develop trade.

Though industries minister Jai Kumar Singh was supposed to attend the meeting, he fell ill; agriculture minister Prem Kumar and principal secretary, industries, S. Siddharth represented the government. Prem Kumar read out a memorandum prepared by the industries department.

"Our demands were concentrated on the fact that Bihar is a land locked state. We requested the Union government to assist our state in improving competitiveness in exports by improving our access to ports," Siddharth said.

The memorandum pointed out that the state has the lowest contribution to exports by the country. Bihar, he pointed, had in the last meeting of the trade development council suggested constituting an inter-ministerial committee for examining the import requirement of Nepal and to promote exports from the state.

However, no such committee was formed. Thought the Centre provided the state a list of items that are exported to Nepal from other countries, details of importers and support to the state government on how to identify the importers of such items were not given.

"We have again requested the central government to set up an inter-ministerial committee for this purpose so that Bihar could be guided in this regard," Siddharth said.

The memorandum added that the Union ministry of commerce and industry did not assist Bihar in developing an export strategy for the state. It has also sought help in increasing food processing potential as Bihar is primarily an agricultural state.

All the demands raised by the state government will be sent by the Union ministry of commerce and industry to the ministries and departments concerned for their comments. Follow-up action will be taken after that.

"We have given them the agenda. We are hoping for the best at the next CTDP meeting that will be held after six months," Siddharth added.