Bhubaneswar, July 20: The Odisha government today decided to bring in large investments through public private partnership (PPP) projects in multi-modal transport, tourism, solid waste management, road and health sectors.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Odisha PPP Technical Society, presided over by planning and convergence minister Usha Devi at the state secretariat today.

Chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi advised the State Public Private Partnership Cell to focus on mobilization of more private sector funds through PPP projects on the infrastructure and service delivery fronts.

The cell was also advised to create a shelf of the feasible projects in consultation with respective departments.

A decision was taken to create a research unit-cum-data bank to identify innovative projects and assist various departments to prepare pre-feasibility reports as well as project reports.

Official sources said that so far, 73 projects had been grounded in the state and another 10 were in the pipeline. Forty-four projects have been made operational and another 29 are in various stages of execution.

Among the 44 projects, 11 are in health sector, 14 in education and 10 in urban development sector. Besides, three such projects are in transport, two each in industrial and tourism sectors, while one is in the roads sector.

The ongoing public-private partnership projects include the Sambalpur-Rourkela road, Joda flyover, bulk water supply project for the Indian Institute of Technology and National Institute of Science Education and Research (Niser) on the city outskirts along with Khurda and Jatni urban local bodies, health care network project in Bhubaneswar, speciality cardiac care centre at Jharsuguda and affordable and low-cost health care facilities all over the state.

Besides, the biotech park, IT park, food, textiles park and polymers park are under execution in public private partnership mode.

Also, a rooftop solar project is being taken up in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in the public-private partnership mode, and being replicated in other 11 urban local bodies.

The other prominent PPP projects include ultra mega solar power project, programmatic street lighting in five urban local bodies, slum upgrade project, greenfield affordable housing projects, solid waste management project in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack and rice storage and warehousing infrastructure project.

Strike

Vehicular traffic was disrupted and shops remain closed because of a dawn-to-dusk strike at Nilagiri in Bhubaneswar called by the Nilagiri Surakhya Manch over fulfilment of 14 demands on Thursday. Members of the manch blocked roads by burning tyres near the Bypass Chhak, and in the process, vehicular movement was affected. Among others, the manch demanded transfer of the local tehsildar and opening of the closed mines.