Acquisition of additional 700 acres of land for the Posco mega steel project, which was stalled temporarily due to the company’s lack of commitment on periphery development work, is set to be completed in two months.
While the state government had acquired 2,000 acres of land, the South Korean steel major needed additional 700 acres for setting up an eight million tonne plant in the first phase. The company which needed 4,004 acres inall, would later scale up capacity to 12 million tonne after receipt of the balance land.
“We would like to express our gratitude to the state government for assuring us that they would hand over the land to us in two months. Posco India is committed to start construction and other project related activities following the land acquisition process”, Posco India’s chairman and managing director (CMD) Yong Won Yoon told the media after meeting chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
Though the state government had acquired 2,000 acres of land for the Posco project, only 548 acres was transferred to the company. Land acquisition work on the mega steel project had grounded to a halt in June last year due to protests by locals at the project site near Paradeep. Problems for the steel project proposed by Posco India have compounded after the National Green Tribunal suspended green nod for the country’s biggest FDI project in March this year. In line with the directive of the tribunal, a four-member expert team of the Union ministry of environment & forests (MoEF) had visited the project site in August this year. The panel was to submit its report to the ministry on environmental implications of the $12 billion project by the end of this month.