The Centre is examining a proposal for grant of prospecting licence for iron ore to South Korean steel giant Posco for its proposed Rs 52,000-crore steel project, which is stalled for about a decade now.
"A proposal for Centre's nod to prospecting licence (PL) to Posco for iron ore over a notified area of 2082.50 hectares has been received by the Mines Ministry from the Odisha government. The matter is under examination," a Mines Ministry official told PTI.
The official said that the Odisha government is still to renew the pact for setting up the plant at Jagatsinghpur district. The pact lapsed as the company has not achieved required milestones for the renewal so far.
The Odisha government last week said it was optimistic about the project.
"The Posco project work has not started. However, we are optimistic about implementation of the project," Odisha Steel and Mines Minister Prafulla Kumar Mallick told the state Assembly last week.
The state government has so far provided 2,752 acres of land to Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (IDCO) for the purpose of setting up Posco's 8 mtpa steel mill in the first phase and the state PSU has already handed over 1,880 acres of land to the steel company.
Even as the company signed MoU with the state government for setting up a 12 mtpa capacity steel plant over 4,000 acre of land, it later decided to reduce land requirement to 2,800 acre and capacity to 8 mtpa.
The project, which would involve the largest-ever foreign direct investment in India, received environmental clearance in January this year.
Posco's integrated steel plant and port project was to originally come up on some 4,000 acres in the coastal town of Jagatsinghpur. However, environmental clearance and land procurement held up the project since 2005.
The steel project had received initial clearance from the Environment Ministry in 2007 and final approval was granted in 2011. The National Green Tribunal (NGT), a quasi-judicial body, however suspended the permit in March 2012 citing environmental concerns.
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