West Bengal Commerce and Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee today said the state government will look into the anomalies in the ownership of the land at JSW Steel’s Salboni project.
“There are certain issues with the ownership of the land at Salboni. Those need to be sorted out first. A meeting with the land reforms commissioner has been fixed for August 10,” Chatterjee said, after a two-hour meeting with JSW Steel Bengal’s Joint MD and Chief Executive Officer Biswadip Gupta.
Of the 4,334 acres, JSW Steel had purchased 294 acres and 159 acres was given as patta by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. For the remaining 3,880 acres, the company got permissible possession of the land vested with the government.
“Without a lease deed we cannot achieve financial closure. If the lease deal is in place, we will go ahead with the groundbreaking of the project before the Durga pujas,” Gupta said.
Chatterjee told JSW representatives they should have taken an approval for exemption under 14Y of the Land Reforms Act, 1955, before purchasing the land directly from land owners. While the Act puts a ceiling of 26 acres on land acquisition, Section 14Y exempts the ceiling for mills, factories, workshops and tea gardens.
JSW plans to commission the first phase of the 10 million-tonne project within 36-40 months of groundbreaking. The first phase comprises 3 million tonnes of steelmaking capacity and 300Mw of power.
The project has been delayed by almost three years. The company has constructed a 36-km boundary wall and is currently working on the township. Around 1,800 people are working at Salboni, mostly locals. The project was launched in November 2008 and the company was supposed to have commissioned the project in three years.