Monnet Ispat to get land in 2 months

The Orissa government has assured Monnet Ispat and Energy Limited, which proposes to set up an integrated steel plant and a 1,000 MW power plant, to give 620 acres of government land at the proposed site in Angul district in the next two months.

The state-owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) will soon initiate measures to hand over the government land to the company.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the senior officials of the state government and the company at the state secretariat recently, following which chief secretary, Ajit Kumar Tripathy,issued instructions to IDCO.

The company requires 1,750 acres. Out of this, 1000 acres is earmarked for the power plant, 220 acres for the steel plant, 295 acres for coal mining and the remaining 235 acres for stacking overburden.

Though the company has taken possession of 520 acres, the balance 1,230 acres is yet to be acquired. Around 620 acres is government land while the remaining 610 acres is private.

With the company facing problem over acquisition of the private land, the chief secretary has suggested IDCO to take prompt action to hand over the 620 acres of government land to facilitate construction work of the project.

Talking to the media persons after the meeting, Sandeep Jajodia, executive vice-chairman and the managing director, Monnet Ispat and Energy Limited said, the company hoped to complete the land acquisition for its proposed Rs 4,200 crore 1,000 MW power plant at Chhendipada and the steel mill at Nisha in next 3-6 months.

"We are already in possession of 520 acres of land and have started the pre-construction work both for the steel and power plants. We hope to complete the acquisition of the remaining land in the next 3-6 months", he said.

Stating that the site development and boundary wall construction is going on at full speed Jajodia said, the actual construction would start in January. However, the company will stick to the original schedule of commissioning the independent power plant (IPP) by 2010 and steel plant at Nisha in 15-18 months.

The company originally planned to set up a 0.25 million tonne per annum steel plant at Mangalpur in Dhenkanal. Though it started land acquisition with assistance from IDCO, it could not succeed in acquiring the requisite land. So it requested the state government to change the site of the steel plant to Nisha in the Angul district. The Orissa government accepted the company's request in May 2006.

Since then, the company has acquired about 100 acres for its proposed steel plant out of the total requirement of 220 acres. The remaining land will be acquired in the next 4-5 months, company sources said.

Meanwhile, the company has placed orders for equipments worth Rs 21 crore and equipment delivery are expected to start from March 2008. Besides, it also plans to start mining of coal from December 2008.