Orissa govt signs MoUs for 3 more steel plants

Bhubaneswar, Dec 22: The Orissa government today signed three more MoUs with private companies for setting up of steel plants in the state.

With these three MoUs, the government had so far signed 45 MoUs for steel plants with a total capacity of 75 million tonne with total investment of over 1.95 lakh crore.

Yesterday, the government penned an MoU with Arcelor Mittal for a 12 MTPA steel plant at an investment of Rs.40,000 crore and another MoU with the SSL Energy Limited for 3 MTPA steel plant with a cost of Rs.8609 crore.

The three companies, who signed the MoU today are Crackers India Limited, MGM Steel Limited and Surendra Mining Industries Limited.

All the three together would invest Rs.666.11 crore to produce 0.75 MTPA by 2009.

While the Crackers India Limited would invest Rs.236.39 crore to set up 0.25 MTPA steel plant at Gobardhanpur in Keonjhar, the MGM Steels Limited would put up 0.25 MTPA Plant at Nimidiha in Dhenkanal with an investment of Rs.208.10 crore.

The Surendra Mining Industries Limited with an investment of Rs.221.62 crore would establish a 0.25 MTPA steel plant at Barahamusa in Sundargarh district.

Orissa's Steel and Mines Minister Padmanav Behera said of the 45 MoUs signed so far, 20 have already started partial commercial production employing nearly 25,000 people. He said altogether Rs.1,95,540 crore would be invested in the 45 steel plants in the state to produce 74.66 million tonne of steel. He said the three companies, who signed MoU today would procure and arrange iron ore by themselves without any assistance from the state government. All the three companies have mines at their disposal and if necessary would purchase iron ore from the Orissa Mining Corporation.

State Finance Minister P C Ghadei while welcoming the signing of the MoUs urged the industry to complete their project on schedule time. He said the employment problem would be solved to a great extent with the establishment 45 steel plants in Orissa.

Crackers India Limited Managing Director Srinibas Sahu, MGM Steel Limited Managing Director Rajib Lochan Mohanty and Surendra Mining Limited Managing Director Probodh Mohanty signed the MoU with State Industries Secretary L N Gupta in presence of Steel and Mines Minister P Behera and Finance Minister P C Ghadei.

UNI