The government has formed an Inter-Ministerial Group to sort out the issues mainly in the land acquisition and mining space by facilitating interaction between the investors and the agencies involved, the Economic Survey today said.
"An Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG on Steel) has been set up to facilitate interaction between investors and the various agencies in matters of acquisition of land, mining rights, power and transportation including the rail, road and port sectors," the pre-budget document tabled in Parliament said.
As many as 222 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) have been signed between various companies and state governments so far for investing a staggering Rs 11 lakh crore in the domestic steel sector to install an annual production capacity of 276 million tonnes.
Several big ticket projects like that of ArcelorMittal and Posco have been facing inordinate delays on account of problems in acquiring land and other regulatory bottlenecks.
In spite of the delays, the Survey stated, steel production rose 7.1 per cent in four years ended 2008-09, mainly as private entities continued to expand their operations.
"The increase in production came on the back of capacity expansion, mainly in private sector plants and higher utilisation rates," it added. Among the domestic private companies, Tata Steel, JSW Steel augmented their production capacities to meet growing demand.
The government plans to set up an annual steel production capacity of 120 million tonnes by 2011-12.
