: Nearly a decade after the mega steel project proposed by South Korean company POSCO failed to take off in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha, the steel major here on Friday said the project would not be shelved.
“We have been waiting here for 10 years. We would never quit,” said Gee Woong Sung, Chairman and Managing Director of POSCO, India, who met Chief Secretary G.C. Pati here.
POSCO India is said to have discussed issues from the physical handing over of the required land for the proposed steel plant in Jagatsinghpur to providing mining linkage to the project.
POSCO India had proposed to establish a 12 million tonne per annum capacity steel plant and a captive port at Rs. 52,000 crore of investment — the biggest Foreign Direct Investment — in Jagatsinghpur district on June 22, 2005. When local resistance grew against acquisition of land, the company reshaped the project into 8 mtpa capacity. It also brought down the land requirement from over 4000 acres of land to 2700 acres.
Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Odihsa (IDCO) with the help of Jagatsinghpur district administration acquired about 2700 acres of land. But it was yet to give physical possession of land to the company. When IDCO attempted to construct a boundary wall, it was resisted by local people under the banner of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti. The land acquisition process has not been completed, even in a decade.
Mr. Sung was said to have requested the State government to expedite the process of land acquisition and develop road linkage to the project area. The meeting which lasted about four hours was attended by IDCO CMD Vishal Dev and Steel and Mines Secretary G Srinivasan here on Friday.
“The meeting was successful,” said the POSCO CMD while coming out of the meeting hall. The POSCO top executive, sources said, wanted to know the fate of Khandadhar iron ore mine.
The South Korean company also got a shot in arm after Union Ministry of Environment and Forest on October 28 clarified that in case of plantations which were notified as ‘Forest’ on a day less than 75 years prior to the December 13, 2005 and are located in the villages having no recorded population of Scheduled Tribes, as per the Census-2001 and Census 2011, then no forest rights are likely to be recognized, even if the process of stipulation in Forest Rights Act and the rules framed under for recognition and vesting of forest rights is initiated and completed. Government sources said the MOEF circular would help POSCO India overcome the forest right hurdle in Jagatsinghpur district.
