The Opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Friday, 7 August alleged that the Odisha government's investor outreach programme — spanning cities across India and countries including Singapore and Japan over the past two years — has failed to translate into measurable investment on the ground. The challenge came as the state hosted Odisha Food Pro 2026, a sector-focused roadshow in New Delhi aimed at drawing investors to the food processing industry.

What the Roadshow Claimed

State officials described Odisha Food Pro 2026 as the first sector-specific investment event held outside Odisha, announcing the signing of 27 MoUs and 12 Investment Intent Forms (IIFs) with total proposals valued at ₹43,437 crore. The government positioned the event as a milestone in its ongoing effort to diversify investment attraction beyond flagship summits.

BJD's Accountability Challenge

BJD spokesperson and media coordinator Lenin Mohanty said in a press statement that the state government has held investors' meets in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Gujarat, as well as in Singapore and Japan, since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed office. He argued that each event has been followed by headline-grabbing investment claims, but no clear accounting of how much capital has actually been deployed in the state.

Mohanty cited the Utkarsh Odisha investors' summit held in Bhubaneswar in January 2025, where the government claimed investment proposals worth ₹16.73 lakh crore, including MoUs valued at ₹12.89 lakh crore. Following a separate Hyderabad Investors' Meet, the government had also claimed proposals worth ₹67,000 crore, he noted.

'After every investors' conference, the government has claimed that proposals worth thousands of crores of rupees have been received. However, even after two years of the BJP Government assuming office, there is no account of how much actual investment has materialised in Odisha. It is gradually becoming evident that the government's tall claims are merely rhetoric,' Mohanty alleged.

FDI Data and Industrial Decline

Citing Central Government data, the BJD claimed that Odisha received only ₹39 crore in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) during 2024–25, amounting to just 0.009 per cent of India's total FDI for the year. The party also alleged that the state's industrial growth rate had slipped from 9.6 per cent in 2023–24 to 7.9 per cent in 2024–25, and that Odisha's standing in national Startup Rankings and Export Rankings had similarly declined.

Mohanty further alleged that several industries which had signed MoUs under the previous government had since withdrawn from or relocated out of the state — a development he attributed to what he called the current government's 'incompetence.'

What Comes Next

The BJP-led state government has not yet issued a formal rebuttal to the BJD's specific data points. The gap between announced investment intentions and verified ground-level activity is a recurring fault line in Indian industrial policy debates, and Odisha's experience is likely to face continued scrutiny as the government prepares for further investor engagement events. Whether the Odisha Food Pro 2026 MoUs convert into operational projects will be a key test of the administration's claims.