Bhubaneswar: With land acquisition emerging as a major hurdle before establishment of down stream industrial parks, Odisha government today decided to start activities in existing small and medium scale processing units instead of waiting for all facilities to come up.

Instruction for this was given by Chief Secretary B K Patnaik who reviewed progress in setting up three industrial parks in steel, stainless steel and aluminium sectors.

The state government had earlier decided to establish Stainless Steel Down Stream Park in Kalinganagar industrial estate of Jajapur district, a steel industrial park at Perjung and an aluminium park at Angul.

While Jindal Steel Limited (JSL) was selected as anchor tenant of the steel parks, Nalco in joint venture with the state owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) would develop the proposed aluminium park.

Meanwhile, a joint venture company namely Angul Aluminium Park was registered, the board of which was formed taking directors from IDCO and NALCO under the chairmanship of CMD, IDCO.

Availability of molten aluminium in desired quantity and enabling industrial policies of government have been key factors to attract investors to this park, an official said.

"It has been decided that the park will be developed in 2 phases. For first phase 204 acres of land is necessary.

Out of this 65.41 acres have already been alienated in the name of IDCO. The district administration has been asked to expedite the process of land acquisition," he said.

Steel and stainless steel parks are proposed to be set up keeping in view growing demand for stainless steel products.