Departments to report within 15 days, to check with Centre on ore export.
A high-level meeting held on Tuesday for renewing the lapsed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state government and Posco India, domestic arm of the Korean steel major for the latter’s proposed mega-project, remained inconclusive.
"Only a preparatory meeting was held on Tuesday and no decision taken. The conditions in the original MoU (of June 2005 and expired in June last year) have been examined and the departments concerned asked to give their reports within 15 days. For instance, Ipicol (Industrial Investment Promotion Corporation) will examine the revised proposal of Posco India, to build the 12-million tonne per annum (mtpa) steel plant in three phases of four mtpa each. The Chief Minister will take a final call on the matter," chief secretary B K Patnaik told journalists.
On jobs, he said Posco India had to give a written commitment on adherence to the employment clause of the state government. This stipulates that industries setting up projects in the state have to reserve 90 per cent of jobs for locals in the unskilled and semi-skilled category, up to 60 per cent in the skilled category and 30 per cent for the supervisory and managerial cadre. They may have a free hand only on senior executives.
Asked if the clause pertaining to swapping of iron ore would be included in the revised MoU, he said: "The Union environment ministry has suggested that exports of iron ore should be avoided and we are examining the matter. We need to take the views of the Union commerce ministry on this issue."
Though official sources are tightlipped on the issue, it is learnt Posco is no longer interested in ore swapping, as it would make use of Finex technology. According to the original MoU, no export of iron ore was to be allowed from the captive mine except by way of full replacement through the import of an equal quantity of high grade ore. Posco needs 600 million tonnes of iron ore of an average iron content of 62 per cent to meet the requirement of the proposed steel project of 12 mtpa.
Asked if the state government would be able to renew the MoU with Posco India by the end of this month, Patnaik said, "Hopefully, it (the MoU renewal) should be done".
Discussions were also held on Tuesday on allocation of water for the project. "As such, the MoU does not specify the source from which water is to be allocated for the Posco project and so all options are open for us," the chief secretary said.
He said the water resources department had not objected to allocation from the Jobra barrage on the Mahanadi.
