SAIL to set up Greenfield plantsin Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh

New Delhi, Aug 30 (UNI) State-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has planned to set up two greenfield plants, one each in the States of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, Minister of State for Steel Akhilesh Das said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

He said the plant in Jharkhand, envisages to achieve a capacity of six million tonnes (MT) per annum by 2012-13 and 12 MT per annum by 2019-20.

The plant in Chhattisgarh also envisages to have a capacity of four MT per annum and would be joint venture with RINL and NMDC.

The time by which the greenfield plants will be set up would depend upon the feasibility reports including site selection report for the respective projects.

Mr Das said SAIL is also trying to takeover few existing sick units like Malvika Steels Ltd in Uttar Pradesh which is one of them.

In reply to another question the Minister said, the Government is working on various measures to improve the steel production capacity which inter-alia includes large scale capacity addition by the public sector Steel Plants.

For effective coordination and monitoring of all issues concerning major steel investments in the country, an Inter Ministerial Group has been set up under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Steel), the Minister said.

A Steel Price Monitoring Committee has also been constituted to monitor, analyse and discuss the price movements of steel commodities. To improve the reach of steel products, Steel Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) have taken up the appointment of district dealers in every district in the country. The steel PSUs have also made arrangements to transport the materials to the dealers' premises and the cost of transportation is borne by the producers, Mr Das said.

UNI