The Odisha government on Friday said the e-commerce company Amazon has approached it to set up one of the biggest warehouses in the state. Besides Amazon, many other big companies are in the queue to set up their warehouses.

Principal secretary, general administration, Ashok Meena said: “Once big e-commerce companies set up their warehouses, the consumers will get what they want within 48 hours. At the same time, it will give a boost to the cargo operations in the state.”

Meena, along with other senior officials including additional chief secretary, department of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) secretary LN Gupta and Airport Authority of India chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra, attended a workshop on air cargo development here on Friday.

Gupta said: “At present the cargo operation is close to 11,000 tonnes per annum and we have set an aim to achieve 50,000 tonnes by 2023. The exports from Odisha have increased. In 2015-16, Odisha had exported products to the tune of Rs 40,000 core and next year it reached Rs 42,000 core. By the end of this year, we have set a target of Rs 52,000 crore.”

He said: “Most of the experts are from mineral, chemical and marines sectors. We aim to export products to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore by 2025. In order to achieve that, we have opened an Raptanni (exports) Bhavan here in Bhubaneswar. We will provide all facilities under one roof.”

Mohapatra said: “Gone are the days when only one flight used to operate from Bhubaneswar. There are nearly 42 departures taking place from Bhubaneswar now. With this, the potential of cargo operation has increased by leaps and bounds.”

Terming Jharsguda airport as a state-of-the-art facility, he said: “People should go and explore the opportunities there. The region is still untapped.” Mohapatra said: “As Odisha is one of the fastest growing economies in eastern India, we decided to organise the workshop here to get direct feedback from various stakeholders about their needs.”

• New train
  

The East Coast Railway has decided to run a new MEMU train in the Cuttack-Paradip railway section from October 8. On its introduction, services of the 58535/58536 Cuttack-Paradip-Cuttack Passenger will be discontinued. Service of the 68434/68433 Berhampur-Cuttack-Berhampur MEMU would be extended up to Paradip and run as the 68434/68433 Berhampur-Paradip- Berhampur MEMU.