The South Korean steel major, Posco, will make a last ditch effort next week to revive its 12 million tonne steel project in Orissa. The Posco-India chairman-cum-managing director, Yong Won Yoon, will meet the chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, on May 16 and discuss before taking a final call on the project.
Yoon?s meeting with Patnaik is considered to be important as the fate of the project is hanging in fire for the last seven years.
Posco-India has apparently lost patience over the inordinate delay in implementing the project. On March 1, 2012, Yoon criticised the state government for the delay in land acquisition stating that the signals are negative. He also blamed the state government for the cost and time over run of the project. Yoon’s statement caused sharp reactions in the state government.
Meanwhile, South Korea?s ambassador Kim Joong Keun had smoothened the ruffled feathers of the chief minister and the government officials involved in the project. Meeting the chief minister on May 2, 2012, he had clarified the stand of the Posco India. He said that Posco would truncate the project size from 12 million tonnes to 8 million tonnes if the required 4,004 acres of land is not available. He had assured that the company would be able to start the construction work in the second half of the year, if at least 2,700 acres of land would be physically handed over to its by the state government.
Sources in the government said that Posco-India is desperate to save the project as the prospect of getting a captive iron ore mines?Khandadhar mines in Sundergarh district?is attached to it. The state government has already recommended for the prospecting license for the Khandadhar mines in favour of Posco-India though it is now entangled in a litigation in the supreme court.
