10,000 acre steel park in Jharkhand

Chandil seen as ideal place because of basic infrastructure availability

The Jharkhand government is planning a steel industries park at Chandil, in Jamshedpur to accommodate prospective investors in the sector investors under a single roof.

The decision to set up a steel park comes on the heels of the Centre's approval to a special economic zone (SEZ) at Adityapur, which was part of the steel city of Jamshedpur, dominated at present by the Tata Steel plant.

A top source in the Jharkhand state industry department told Business Standard that the proposed steel park and SEZ would emerge as the next important industrial hub in Jharkhand, offering all advantages enjoyed at its location by steel major Tisco in Jamshedpur.

He admitted that the steel park proposed in Jharkhand was likely to be similar to the similar project planned in Orissa, which was being set up on 12,000 acres of land at Kalinganager in Jajpur district.

Jharkhand will acquire 10,000 acres of land for the park. Ranchi-based public sector consulting company Mecon has been assigned the contract for preparation of a master plan for the project. The source said the park was considered essential to prevent haphazard location of industrial units.

Chandil would be an ideal place for the investors owing to existence of the basic infrastructure like water supply, electricity power lines, railroad link and roads.

The steel park to be set up will also enjoy the advantage of the entire iron ore reserves of Jharkhand being located in the nearby West Singhbhum district.

Besides, the Centre will be approached to provide financial assistance to the project under existing schemes for upgrading of industrial infrastructure.

Industry sources in the state capital said the plan for setting up the SEZ at Adityapur was first raised by the former managing director of Tata Steel, JJ Irani, who was head of an industrial committee set up by the Bihar government just a few months before the constitution of the Jharkhand state.

Sources pointed out that the first chief minister of Jharkhand,Babulal Marandi, had announced in 2002 that the new industrial zones of Jharkhand would be developed along the Baharagora-Chandil-Jamshedpur-Ranchi corridor to house the industrial units as part of the industrialisation of Jharkhand using the state's abundant mineral resources.

The government had also indicated that the proposed industrial zones would be linked through four-lane national highways (NH) to facilitate movement of products from the zones to rail junctions and the ports of Kolkata and Haldia.

The corridor was connected by national highway (NH) 6 between Kolkata and Mumbai.

In a parallel development, a committee under the chief secretary of Jharkhand, PP Sharma, recently reviewed investment proposals worth Rs 40,121.36 crore from 22 industrial houses. Most of the investors had expressed interest in setting up units in the proposed steel park.

In addition, as many as 30 industrial establishments had signed MoUs with the government and the proposals involved investments of Rs 31,000 crore when added up.

Among the major investors which have expressed interest in investing in Jharkhand were Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, Ispat Industries, Mittal Steel, Bhusan Steel and Kalyani Steel.