Tata Steel is confident that the first phase of its 6 million tonnes per annum steel project at Kalinganagar, in Orissa, will be complete by December 2013.
"Tata Steel expects that it will be in a position to complete the first phase of the 3 million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel unit by December, 2013," the domestic steel major has informed an inter-ministerial panel headed by Steel Secretary P K Misra.
The project at Kalinganagar, in Jajpur district of Orissa, entails an investment of about Rs 34,500 crore.
"Tata Steel has acquired nearly 3,040.398 acres of land for its proposed 6-MTPA steel project in Orissa, out of the proposed 3,500 acres," the panel report said.
It added that all the major equipment required for the project has been ordered and construction of the plant is likely to commence soon.
The first phase of the plant envisages 3 MTPA of crude steel production capacity, feeding hot and cold rolling mills. The second phase, with equal capacity, is likely to be completed by March, 2015.
The plant would produce premium flat and value-added products and supplement the production capacities of its Jamshedpur plant.
The power requirement for the project, as per the firm, would be met through two captive power plants that will be set up by Industrial Energy Ltd, a joint venture between Tata Steel and Tata Power.
Tata Steel, the world's seventh-largest steel-maker by output, had signed an MoU with the Orissa government in November, 2004, for setting up a 6 million tonnes per annum integrated steel plant.
The project had earlier run into trouble following stiff opposition from the locals. Fourteen people were killed in police firing on January 2, 2006, while protesting against construction of the plant's boundary wall.