Odisha Industrial Projects Boost Growth Story in Odisha
Address by Shri Karan Adani at the groundbreaking ceremony for multi-sectoral industrial projects
08 Apr 2026, Bhubaneswar
Honourable Chief Minister Shri Mohan Charan Majhi ji,
Honourable Minister of Industries Shri Sampad Charan Swain ji,
esteemed Ministers,
Respected Chief Secretary and Additional Chief Secretary,
distinguished officials of the Government of Odisha,
valued partners, colleagues, and friends,
Jai Jagannath.
Namaskar.
Honourable Chief Minister, I first came to Odisha for Utkarsh 2025 as a guest. I leave, each time, as something closer to family. Your warmth, your clarity of vision, and the quiet confidence with which you speak of Odisha’s future — these are not the qualities of a State in transition. They are the hallmarks of a State that already knows where it is going.
And Odisha does know.
It has always been known.
This is a land that gave the world one of its most transformative moments.
It was on the banks of the Daya river, at Kalinga, that a conquering emperor looked upon his own victory — and wept. What Ashoka witnessed here did not just change him. It changed the course of civilisation. The philosophy of Dhamma that emerged from that battlefield travelled across Asia, across centuries, and shaped the moral imagination of billions of people. Odisha did not merely witness history. It redirected it.
Centuries later, the merchants of Kalinga sailed out from this very coastline — across the Bay of Bengal, to Java, Sumatra, Bali, and beyond — carrying not just goods, but language, art, temple architecture, and culture. The Hindu-Buddhist civilisations of Southeast Asia bear the unmistakable imprint of this land. Odisha’s reach, at its height, was not regional. It was oceanic.
And then there is Konark.
A temple built in the thirteenth century that modern engineers still struggle to fully explain. Twenty-four wheels, each a sundial accurate to the minute. A structure aligned to the winter solstice sunrise with a precision that required mathematics we are only now rediscovering. Konark was not built by people who thought small. It was built by a civilisation that looked at the sky and said — We will be equal to it.
I think about that spirit often. Because what we are doing here today — breaking ground on new infrastructure, on digital systems, on industrial capacity — is, in its own way, an expression of that same impulse. The impulse to build things that outlast the moment. Things that serve the generations that come after us.
Odisha sits on one of the most consequential intersections in the Indian economy. Over 570 kilometres of coastline — the same coastline from which Kalingan sailors once set out to shape a continent. Among the richest mineral endowments on earth — coal, iron ore, bauxite, chromite. Water. A young workforce. And now, increasingly, a government that has made itself a partner, not a gatekeeper, to those who come here to build.
The Vision 2036 and 2047 roadmap — a USD 500 billion economy by 2036, USD 1.5 trillion by 2047 — is ambitious. But ambition untethered from foundation is just aspiration.
What makes Odisha’s vision credible is that the foundation is real.
The resources are here.
The people are here.
The governance reform is happening.
What remains is the act of building — decisively, at scale, and with a long horizon.
That is why Adani is here.
Not as a visitor.
As a builder.
We have been in Odisha for years — in ports, in mining, in the foundations of industrial infrastructure. But today is different. Today, we break ground on three projects that are not simply investments in capacity. They are investments in what Odisha is becoming.
The Data Centre at Info Valley, Bhubaneswar — an investment of ₹ 800 Cr —is not a building full of servers. It is Odisha’s claim on the digital economy — the infrastructure through which AI, cloud computing, and digital governance will flow for decades to come. This project will create 200 jobs — high-end jobs — direct and indirect.
The Thermal Power Plant near Cuttack — an investment of ₹ 30,181 Cr — answers a question that no industrial economy can avoid: where does the energy come from? Growth without reliable power is growth that stalls. This plant will bring stability to the grid, security to industry, and predictability to the millions of households and MSMEs whose futures depend on a consistent electricity supply. It will generate 7,000 jobs —direct and indirect — for the people of this region.
And the Cement Manufacturing Unit near Cuttack — an investment of ₹ 2100 Cr — speaks to something I think about often: the geography of opportunity. The Kalingan builders of Konark understood that great structures require not just vision, but material. Stone had to be quarried, transported, and shaped. Today we do the same — but the material is cement, and the structures we are building are hospitals, schools, roads, and homes. This plant will employ 2,500 people — direct and indirect — and ensure that Odisha builds its own future, with its own hands, from its own earth.
Taken together, these projects are a statement of belief. A belief that Odisha is not on the cusp of its moment — it is in it that the next chapter of India’s industrial rise will be written here, in this State, by these people.
There is a continuity in this that I find genuinely moving.
The sailors of ancient Kalinga did not ask for permission to reach across the ocean.
The astronomers of Konark did not ask for permission to solve the sky.
And Odisha today does not need to ask permission to lead.
The inheritance is already there.
We are simply being invited to be part of what comes next.
The Adani Group’s stake in Odisha’s success is not incidental. It is structural. The more Odisha grows, the more we grow with it. That alignment is, I believe, the right foundation for a partnership that outlasts any single project.
Honourable Chief Minister, to you and your government — thank you. Not for the hospitality alone, though that has been extraordinary. Thank you for the clarity of your vision, for the seriousness with which you approach governance, and for the trust you have extended to us. We do not take it lightly.
To the people of Odisha: what we build here today, we build for you. Not above you, not around you — for you and with you. That is the only kind of growth worth pursuing.
The ground we break today will, in time, carry the weight of data centres, power plants and factories.
But first, it carries a promise.
We intend to keep it.
Thank you.
Jai Jagannath.
Bande Utkal Janani.
Must Read: