West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has invited Jindal South West (JSW) Steel's managing director Sajjan Jindal for talks regarding his project near the Maoist stronghold of Lalgarh. Mr. Jindal is scheduled to arrive at the State Secretariat on Saturday.
Confirming this, Chief Executive Officer of JSW Bengal Biswadip Gupta said that Mr. Jindal was scheduled to arrive here in his private plane for the meeting. This would be his second round of talks with the government, since the laying of the foundation stone of his Rs. 30,000-crore steel project in Salboni in November 2008.
Among the very few projects of its kind in the country to have physical possession of 4500 acres, the project has made little progress beyond erection of a 36-km long boundary wall. It first got caught in financial travails after the 2008 global financial turmoil and then in some irregularities over its land holdings. The project has been reworked and the cost has been pruned to Rs. 20,000 crore; however it is yet to achieve financial closure.
