Tata Steel acquires 3,000 acres in Orissa

TATA GROUP GOES ON MAJOR OVERDRIVE

Tata Steel has acquired 3,000 acres land for its 6 million tonne project in Orissa and expects to start construction within two months.

"We will soon place orders for the equipment for the Rs 15,000-crore project. We have got the bids and negotiations with different parties are going on. We should finalise the order by July," said B Muthuraman, managing director. He was addressing a press conference here today.

The Orissa project is part of the Rs 67,000 crore that the steel major is investing for three greenfield projects.

The other two are the Rs 12,000-crore project in Chattisgarh with a capacity of 5 million tonne per annum and the third greenfield plant in Jharkhand, entailing an investment of Rs 40,000 crore for a 12 million tonne capacity.

Tata Steel is also investing Rs 4,500 crore to expand its Jamshedpur plant capacity by 1.8 million tonne, which should be completed by August 2008, added Muthuraman.

"By the end of this financial year, the total capacity should increase by half a million tonne to five million tonne per annum," he said. He denied any plans to come out with rights issue to finance the projects.

The company has earmarked about 3,000 acres for the Chhattisgarh project and identified the area for the Jharkhand project, which will be spread over 5,000 acres. It has spent about Rs 70 crore for acquiring the 3,000 acres land in Orissa.

Reiterating that the Orissa government has commenced rehabilitation programme for the displaced natives, Muthuraman said that the company will adopt all the 700 affected families.

"Each one of them will be called 'Tata Steel Family' and we will make sure their income levels are better or equal as before," he stated. The first phase of the Orissa plant, adding 3 million tonne, will be over by 2009.

Muthuraman added that Tata Steel will also adopt the 1,400 families who will be displaced by its projects in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. "We will monitor each family every month and they will be under our care," he said.