Posco India is planning a ground-breaking ceremony on April 1, at Paradip, Orissa, the site for the 12 million tonne greenfield steel plant.
Company expects a much more favourable situation for foreign investors
KOLAKTA: Anticipating favourable turn of events even after one year of delay of its $12 billion project in the country, Posco India is planning a ground-breaking ceremony on April 1, at Paradip, Orissa, the site for the 12 million tonne greenfield steel plant.
As things stand now, the Korea steel major has 512 acres of government land in its possession while clearance for diversion of some 2,900 acre of forest land is currently before the Supreme Court, hearing on which is scheduled around the end of this month. However, 438 acres of private land will have to be acquired for which a joint committee of representatives of locals, district administration and Posco India has completed demarcation and socio-economic survey.
However, according to Posco India officials, the price line for acquiring the land is yet to be finalised.
The price line, in turn, will be the benchmark for determining different price at which different types of land will be acquired from private owners.
Posco officials said the ground-breaking ceremony will mark the beginning of construction of the steel project that will integrate the plant and a captive port in a single zone.
However, construction of the port will precede construction of the steel plant since the latter will involve preparation of the land before actual construction can start which could take at least a year to complete.
Construction work on Posco’s Orissa plant has already been delayed by over a year following opposition from locals to land acquisition with protests snowballing into sporadic violence.
“We are optimistic about things. Negotiations with various stakeholders, including local people, are very positive and the ground-breaking ceremony will be an important move ahead,” said a company spokesperson.
As per revised timelines, the first phase of 4 million tonne out of the total 12 million tonne composite project will be completed by 2010-11. The complete project is expected to go on stream by around 2016-17.
Posco India has applied for a mining lease of 600 million tonne reserve of iron ore and three such reserves of 200 million tonne each has been earmarked by the Orissa government. However, it is not clear at this point of time as to how Posco’s mining lease proposal will be affected by the new mining policy that has been cleared by the Union Cabinet last week.
The Centre will soon introduce a bill to amend the mines and mineral (development & regulation) Act 1975, to give effect to the new mining policy.
The new policy will put in place a transparent mechanism for auctioning of mining lease. Besides this, there will be a tribunal to settle disputes. All this is expected to be favourable to foreign investors in steel like Posco and ArcelorMittal that have lined up investments in Orissa.
d_ajay@dnaindia.net
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