With many big ticket industrial projects in Odisha beset with delays in procurement of land and obtaining forest clearance, the state chief secretary, G C Pati has stressed on overcoming roadblocks for the projects.
The state government today held a preparatory meeting to review progress in respect of 56 large industrial projects including Posco’s steel project. The projects are slated to be reviewed sometime next month by the project monitoring group of the Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) chaired by additional secretary, cabinet secretariat, Anil Swaroop.
At the meeting, Pati instructed the concerned departments to expedite pending issues relating to land acquisition and receipt of different statutory clearances.
On pending land cost dues of Posco India, he directed the industries department to resolve the issue through coordination with the steel & mines department and the Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco).
In total, 2,752.03 acres of land has been sanctioned for the eight million tonne capacity steel plant proposed by Posco in the first phase. Out of this, 1,703.56 acres has been handed over to the firm.
Idco is sore over non-deposit of Rs 54.22 crore by Posco India as land cost for 2,193.52 acres. This has held up sanction of lease of additional 1,048.52 acres for the project.
Other projects that were vetted include oil refinery of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), thermal power projects of NSL, Lanco Babandh Power Ltd, KVK Nilachal Power Pvt Ltd, steel projects of Essar Steel, Visa Steel, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) and rail projects like Angul-Sukinda, Paradeep-Haridaspur and Talcher-Bimlagarh.
Issues relating to forest clearance, environment clearance, raw material linkage and land acquisition in respect of these projects were deliberated.
