ArcelorMittal, which had proposed to set up a 12-million-tonne steel plant in Orissa for an investment of R40,000 crore, seems to have given up on the project.
Sources in the Orissa government said the global steel major is not showing any interest and is mum on the letters from the state government. The company’s officials, they said, were not pursuing the matter.
?Ever since the MoU with ArcelorMittal expired on December 20, 2011, the state is making an all-out effort to keep in touch with the company,? said steel and mines minister Rajani Kanta Singh.
However, a senior official of the state’s steel and mines department said ArcelorMittal was not responding to any of the letters from the state government. It was in January the steel & mines department requested ArcelorMittal to furnish physical and financial progress reports up to December 31, 2012, for its steel project.
On February 8, the department sent a reminder to the company. As there was no response from the steel major, the state government on March 11 shot off a letter saying, ?The submission of the physical and financial progress report up to December 31 has been inordinately delayed, which is being viewed seriously?.
ArcelorMittal has filed a formal proposal for renewal of its MoU. However, unlike Posco-India, it is not pursuing the matter with the government. Now that the state government has decided not to promise captive iron ore mines while signing MoU renewal documents, many companies have become indifferent to projects for which they had signed the MoU.
ArcelorMittal chairman LN Mittal had threatened to pull out from the project, complaining that land acquisition is very slow and the decision on captive mines was not coming through.
The company’s six applications for captive iron ore mines are pending at various levels with the government.
The company has been allotted a coal mine for the project.
At ground zero, villagers facing displacements in ArcelorMittal’s steel project are demanding a complete withdrawal. Although land acquisition has started, the government is yet to take possession of the land. ?So far, no land has been acquired for the project in the Patna tehsil of Keonjhar district,” said Singh.
ArcelorMittal has sought 7,003 acres of land for the project and 750.58 acres for the plant township in the Patna tehsil of the Keonjhar district for the 12-million-tonne project.