| About Rs 200,000 crore are expected to be invested in the state for building steel and aluminum producing capacity, power projects, ports and other infrastructure. |
| Officials from Orissa met Finance Minister P Chidambaram today and briefed him on the projects being developed in the state, and on proposals under consideration. |
| Talking to the media after the meeting, these officials said the meeting was not just about South Korean steel major Posco, it was about the overall investment scenario in Orissa. |
| "The state has managed to attract all these without any road shows or hard-selling," said an official. He added that the negotiations with Posco for setting up the country's biggest steel plant in Orissa were still on and that a memorandum of understanding would be signed soon. But he did not specify when it would be signed. |
| The Orissa government has already formed a special purpose vehicle to handle infrastructure projects in the state to support upcoming large industrial ventures. |
| A senior state government functionary said MoUs had been either signed or were in the process of being signed to build a steel capacity of 56 million tonnes. |
| It is also understood that seven proposals are in the pipeline for building a power-generating capacity of 10,000 Mw. |
| Three major aluminum projects, each of one million tonnes of capacity, are also on the anvil. These three projects, to be developed by AV Birla-controlled Hindalco, Utkal Alumina and Vedanta are expected to attract investments of Rs 26,500 crore. |
| Infrastructure projects worth Rs 5000 crore will be jointly undertaken by the Centre and the Orissa government. Most of these will be with public funds while some will be carried out through public-private partnership. |
| Orissa government officials also said meetings with major agencies like the Investment Commission, Planning Commission, Foreign Investment Implementation Agency, Inter-Ministerial Group and the steel ministry have been held to take the projects forward. |
| A master plan, taking into consideration every component of infrastructure, has been put in place, said a state government official. |
| The major components include power, railways, water, roadways and urban infrastructure. This, however, does not include the large captive infrastructure projects that are coming up in the state. |
| The single-largest investment, however, can come from Posco, which has committed an investment upward of Rs 45,000 crore for a 10 million tonne capacity steel plant, to be set up in Orissa in three phases. |
| Reuters adds: The Orissa government hopes to sign the steel project deal with South Korea's Posco soon, an official said on Tuesday, in what would be a record foreign direct investment in India. |
| "We hope to finalise the negotiations soon," Orissa Chief Secretary Subhash Pani said, after making a presentation to Chidambaram. |
| His comment comes a day after BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, dismissed a newspaper report that it had pulled out of the Indian iron ore and steel project, saying it was still in talks with the South Korean steel maker. |
| The project would be more than triple the value of India's previous record foreign investment, the Dabhol power plant, now mothballed as creditors and the government try to strike a deal. |
| Posco has said talks over iron ore mining were the main hold-up for the Orissa project, which includes building a 10-million-tonne steel plant, a 30-million-tonne iron ore mine, a mill for making hot rolled coil and a sea port. |
| In the pipeline |
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