GPI sets up new steel making unit at Rs 173 crores in Chattisgarh

Kolkata, Mar 24 (UNI) The Rs 125 crores Godawari Power and Ispat Limited, the largest steel making unit in the mineral rich Chattisgarh, plans to set up its second state of the art manufacturing unit at Raipur with a proposed investment of Rs 173 crores by next year.

Announcing the company's future plans to raise necessary funds to meet the exapnsion programme through the IPO route, GPIL Chairman and Managing Director B L Agrawal here today said they had already acquired about 20 hectares of industrial land at Srisila near Raipur for the new unit where the commercial production was expected to start by June next year.

He said at present the Raipur plant of GPIL produced 2.35 lakh tonnes of Sponge iron, 2.50 lakh tonnes of steel billets,16,500 tonnes of Ferro Alloys and 36,000 tonnes of steel wires of differect capacities per annum.

Following the completion of the new project the capacity of each of these products would be doubled to cater to the increasing demand from the infrastructural sectors of not only Chattisgarh and neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh but also to several others states in the Western and Southern regions of the country.

"Through this process we are also planning to have a pan India presence of our products within the next two to three years", Mr Agarwal said adding that, however, in the post IPO scenario,the 100 per cent financial holdings of the promoter in the company would be reduced to around 63.2 per cent.

The rest of the equity would then be rested with the public and a number of financial institutions which had come forward to finance the expansion programme, Mr Agarwal informed.

He said GPIL had also entered into a long term agreement with the Chattisgarh government in terms of getting licence for iron ore mining in the state's Borio Tibbu and the Ari Dongri mines for a period of over 25 years from last year.

" We are also looking for similar opportunity to get the lease holding right for an open cast coal mine in the area to meet the demand for raw materials," Mr Agarwal said and disclosed his plan to set up a 25 mw captive power plant near the new plant to meet the entire internal demand.

The necessary order for the suuply of boiler by the end of this year had already been placed with a reputed internaltional power giant of Korea,the GPIL CMD informed.

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