Arcelor Mittal to sign MoU for 12 MTPA steel plant in Orissa

Bhubaneswar,Dec 20 (UNI) The Arcelor Mittal, the largest Steel maker in the world will sign an MoU with the Orissa government here tomorrow for setting up of a 12 MTPA steel plant with an investment of Rs 40,000 crore.

The High Level Project Clearance Authority, chaired by Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, today cleared the project to be set up in Patna tahasil in the tribal-dominated Keonjhar district.

Earlier on December 18 last the state level single window clearance authority presided over by Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy cleared the proposal and referred the matter to the High Level Project Clearance Authority.

Arcelor Mittal chief Laxmi Narayan Mittal on July seven last met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and proposed to set up a 12 million tonne green field steel plant in Orissa.

The state government while welcoming the proposal immediately constituted a Joint Working Group to facilitate the project.

The Joint Working Group after discussion with the high level official team of the Arcelor Mittal proposed seven sites but later the Arcelor Mittal zeroed in three sites and made it clear that final section of the site would be communicated shortly.

According to the official sources, the project is most likely to be established in Patna in the tribal-dominated Keonjhar district and the first phase of the project would be four MTPA for which the State Project Clearance Authority would give its nod tomorrow.

The Arcelor would set up the plant in two phases with six million ton capacity each. While Rs 22,000 crore would be spent for the first phase, the rest Rs 18,000 crore would be spent for the second phase.

This would be the second largest foreign investment in the state after POSCO, which had already signed an MoU in May last year to set up a 12 million ton capacity steel plant at a cost of Rs 51 ,000 crore.

The company had requested the government to provide 8000 acre of land out of which nearly 1000 acre would be required for the Arcelor Mittal to put up a captive power plant.

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