Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra today held a meeting with Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar, Steel Secretary Rakesh Singh, Odisha Chief Secretary G C Pati and Posco India CMD Gee Woong Sung on the steps that can be taken to save the project, sources said.
"Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik do not want Posco to leave India. It was decided during the meeting that Odisha will again talk to the South Korean steel major and look for options that can be leveraged to save the USD-12 billion project," they added.
"One of the options available, which Odisha is mulling, is that Posco can either set up the plant as a JV with OMC or OMC can be given iron ore mines and then Posco can have some arrangement with the public sector undertaking for setting the ISP," sources said.
The Bhubaneswar-headquartered OMC mines minerals like chrome, iron ore and manganese, which caters to the requirements of mineral-based industries such as steel, sponge iron, pig iron, ferro-manganese, ferro-chrome etc.
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The proposed project has been stalled for about a decade due to various regulatory hurdles, including delays in land acquisition and mining leases.
One of the world's largest steel makers, Posco, in the meantime has joined Uttam Galva group to set up an estimated USD 3-billion steel plant in Maharashtra - the first Indian facility for the global giant.
It has also signed a pact with Mesco Steel to shift its first Finex plant to Kalinganagar from Pohang in South Korea.