A high-level government panel set up to facilitate investments in the steel sector will meet to discuss projects proposed by global giants like ArcelorMittal and Posco.
NEW DELHI: A high-level government panel set up to facilitate investments in the booming steel sector will meet on October 18 to discuss projects proposed by global giants like ArcelorMittal and Posco among other issues.
The meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) was earlier scheduled for October 8, but has been postponed as some of the members are travelling abroad.
"The IMG will now met on October 18 as senior officials of the Steel Ministry are currently overeas... Steel Secretary R S Pandey has gone to Berlin to attend a conference," a senior ministry official told.
Steel Authority of India Ltd Chairman Sushil Kumar Roongta and his counterpart in Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd P K Bishnoi have also gone to attend the conference organised by International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI), he said.
"We envisage an investment of Rs 2,76,880 crore in the sector by 2011-12. The IMG will deliberate on ways and means to fructify these projects in its meeting," the official said.
The key issues to be discussed are ensuring adequate iron ore resources to steel companies including ArcelorMittal and Korea's Posco, which have announced major investments in Jharkhand and Orissa.
"After a detailed scrutiny of the current steel scenario, we found that steel production by 2012 is likely to be at 124.06 million tonnes per annum. This will necessitate 198 MT of iron ore by the same period and 438 MT by 2019-20," the official pointed out.
Companies keen to expand production capacity have made it clear that they would require iron ore mines to carry out both greenfield and brown-field expansions, he said.
The official said proven iron ore reserves should be leveraged to meet the raw material requirement of the promised investments and fructify capacity addition.
The group will also discuss the issue of allowing private investments in areas like creating railway infrastructure including procuring and operating rolling stock, he said.
The possibility of opening up more coal blocks for major steel projects and seek their expeditious allocation will also be discussed by the group. Steel companies have sought coal blocks in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.
SAIL has sought Mandakini, Fatehpur East, Ganeshpur and Gourangdih blocks, while ArcelorMittal has sought Mandakiniand Rampia Dipside of Rampia block for its proposed captive power plants in Orissa and Ganeshpur and Saragarha blocks for the Jharkhand project.
"Environmental issues impeding the investments will also come up for discussion. Present environment clearance policy needs amendment for faster and transparent clearance of mega projects," the official said.
SAIL is awaiting environmental clearance for Budhaburu, Dhoil and Singhbhum (W) for the past three years.
Major steel utilities have announced massive capacity expansions. SAIL is carrying out its modernisation programmes to ramp up its production capacity to more than 24 million tonnes, while RINL is executing a corporate plan to increase production capacity to more than 6 MT by 2011-12.
Besides, Tata Steel has announced plans to increase production to 13 MT from the current 5 MT, while Essar will raise capacity to 14.5 MT from the current 4.6 MT.
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