File picture of the biotech park site

 

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 13: The future of a biotech park at Andharua on the city outskirts looks uncertain with no work having been done on the allotted plot.

Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) has issued a notice in this connection to its partner company, Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which was to execute the project.

The state government had allotted 30 acres in the first phase for the project. Bharat Biotech was to start construction immediately and finish 25 per cent of the work in six months after plan approval last November.

Project head, Bhubaneswar construction division (I) of Idco, D.R. Tripathy said: “We have issued a notice to the company to start the work. Idco has provided land, infrastructure such as roads, boundary wall, lights and water, but the company is yet to start work.”

Tripathy said the science and technology department, in association with the Hyderabad-based firm, had initiated the project.

The original plan was to develop the biotech-cum-IT park over 64.6 acres with an investment of Rs 100 crore.

On October 25, 2009, chief minister Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone for the project and the construction work was to start by March 2011.

Director (biotechnology), science and technology department, U.B. Mohapatra said: “Initially, we were part of the project. But in 2013, the government decided to hand over the project to Idco.”

First, the science and technology department and later the Idco, asked the company to begin work. But they have not responded.

“We are waiting for their reply and if the reply is not satisfactory, we may scrap the project with permission from the state government,” said a senior Idco official.

“After readying the infrastructure, we also facilitated the building plan approval from the Bhubaneswar Development Authority in November last year. But they showed no eagerness to start the work,” said an official of the project monitoring unit of Idco.

The incubation facility, which was to be set up over 10 acres inside the park, would have helped biotechnology students work on new projects and start-up units which would have given a boost to the study of biotechnology in general and the pharmaceutical industry in the region in particular.

Repeated attempts to contact Bharat Biotech officials over phone yielded no results.