Odisha allocates land acquired for Posco to JSW for mega steel plant

Bhubaneswar : The Odisha government has allocated the land, earlier acquired for South Korean steel major Posco, to JSW Steel to set up its mega steel plant of 10 million tonne capacity in Paradip town.

"We have allocated 2,900 acres land to JSW to set up a steel plant. The land was earlier allotted to Posco. The authorities of JSW have been directed to deposit money for the allotted land," Industries Minister Ananta Das told media here on Thursday.

Official sources said JSW Steel is in the process of taking approvals from the Government of India for environment and forest clearance.

The government received a proposal from JSW Steel in 2016 to set up a greenfield steel plant in Odisha with an investment of Rs 50,000 crore.

The High-Level Clearance Authority (HLCA) headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has already approved the JSW steel project in 2017.

The steel plant is expected to go on stream in four years and generate around 30,000 jobs.

JSW has already expressed interest to have a long-term agreement with state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) to secure iron ore supplies for its integrated steel project.

Earlier, JSW had asked for 4,500 acres of land near Paradip town to set up the steel plant in phases. It had asked for the land that has already been acquired for the Posco project, said sources.

Notably, the state government had acquired 2,700 acres of land for the now shelved $12 billion steel project of Posco at Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district. However, it failed to start its work due to land acquisition hurdle, law and order problem and mining issue.

Posco asked the state government to take back the acquired land in March 2017.

Meanwhile, some betel vine cultivators, who had dismantled their vines and sold the land to Idco, the nodal land acquisition agency of the state, have re-erected their vines on the acquired land.