JSW to invest over 80,000 cr for 2 new steel plants

Bangalore, Jun 30 (UNI) JSW Steel Limited, the second largest Steel producer in private sector in India, will invest over Rs 80,000 crore for its two proposed steel plants at Jharkhand and West Bengal respectively, Company CEO and Joint Managing Director Y S S Rao said today.

Talking to newspersons here, Mr Rao said the five Billion US Dollar company, already having its plants in Salem (Tamil Nadu) and Vijayanagar (Karnataka), also planned to set up two new facilities of 10 million tonne capacity each at West Bengal and Jharkhand. With the commissioning of the plants, JSW Steel aimed to produce 32 million tonnes of steel by 2020.

Mr Rao said the required land had been acquired for the West Bengal plant, while the acquisition process was under progress in Jharkhand. The company was also in the process of getting mining security for the proposed facilities. He said in Jharkhand, there was some problem in getting land to set up plant, while availabilty of iron ore and coal ore had been assured.

Stating that compared to the global per capita consumption of steel which stood at 180 KG, the per capita consumption in India was the lowest with just 50 KG, Mr Rao said with the growth of GDP, the per capita steel consumption was also expected to go high and offer good potential for expansion.

The Centre's directive for cutting down the steel prices had a negative impact over steel companies margin. ''JSW Steel has suffered about 400 to 500 crore,'' he said and expressed confidence that the price regulation would be restricted to this August.

The company had decided to open its branded showrooms for its varied steel products across the country by investing over Rs 75 crore.

It would set up its exclusive steel retail outlets across the country and would set up 50 such branded showrooms this year and 550 in next two years.

He said the 'JSW Shoppe,' first-of-its-kind outlet set up by any steel producer, would have on display all the products of JSW Steel ranging from hot rolled to colour coated steels.

''The concept of the Shoppe originates from the fact that we want customers to get the right quality of products at the right price and at the right place. Shoppe is an effort to create a customer-friendly ambiance.'' he said.

Replying to questions, Mr Rao said the company was investing about Rs 10 to 12 lakh per outlet and for this year, over 50 branded showrooms would be started and subsequently would have a pan-India presence with over 600 branded outlets, he said.

UNI MV RM SJ 1607