Procedural hassles hold up plant, says Shyam Beriwala
Kolkata-based Shyam Steel is facing “procedural delays” in land acquisition for its proposed steel project at Raghunathpur in Purulia.
Shyam Beriwala, chairman, Shyam Steel said that there was no political issues, but procedural delays were holding up the project. Land acquisition was underway but yet to be handed over to Shyam Steel.
The 1.2 million tonne project would require around 1,200 acres. However, for the first phase 600 acres would be adequate. Beriwala said, the company had purchased 100 acres and the balance was being acquired by the West Bengal government. “The state government is more cautious after Singur but we expect the land to be handed over in 2-3 months,” he said.
The project would also have a power plant. In the first phase the capacity would be 25MW which would go up to 200MW. The total investment in the project would be Rs 3,000 crore. Beriwala was addressing a press meet after being elected the president of the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce. He said that the development of Asansol-Durgapur as a hub of iron and steel had slowed down due to some basic problems like uncertain iron ore supply and poor railway facilities.
“Orissa and Jharkhand which are the major sources of iron ore insist on location of the steel plants in their states for supply of iron ore. Transport of iron ore is also causing a serious problem as wagon supply is also inadequate and Railway corridor from Barbil in Orissa is single track. Coal being controlled by the central government is not available to many industries though the best coal reserves are located in West Bengal,” said Beriwala.