Domestic mining giant MSPL will invest more than Rs 18,000 crore to increase its capacity and set up steel and pellet manufacturing plants within the next five years, its top official said today."We will be investing about Rs 18184.50 crore in the next five years to increase mining capacity and fructify our business diversification plans, including setting up a 5 million tonne steel plant for forward integration," Rahul N Baldota, executive director, MSPL, told PTI.He said the company would set up a 1 metric tonne steel plant in Koppal district in Karnataka and the board has approved an investment of Rs 4,500 crore for the first phase of the project."Work for the plant would begin by October this year and it is likely to be commissioned by 2009. In the second and third phases the capacity would be taken up by 4 million tonne. We would invest a total of $4 million for this special steel plant," Baldota said.Besides, MSPL has also got the official nod for gold mining at Gadag in Karnataka and would invest about Rs 150 crore for the purpose, he said."We are aiming to mine around 2 million tonne of gold per annum from the mine which has an estimated reserve of 30 million tonne," said Baldota, who took over as the new president of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) a couple of days ago.The company is also aiming to mine around 10 million tonne of iron ore in the current fiscal, he said.
