Renewal of POSCO MoU by June-end unlikely

Bhubaneswar, Jun 28: The Orissa government is unlikely to meet the June-end deadline to renew the MoU with South Korean steel major Posco, official sources said on Monday, Jun 27.

Though the state government had earlier announced plan to renew the MoU with Posco-India by end of June, it could take another week for reaching the stage, Chief Secretary B K Patnaik told reporters.

Maintaining that all the concerned departments and Posco-India have already submitted their views on the possible changes to be made in the fresh MoU, Patnaik said a final decision will be taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The MoU signed on June 22, 2005 between Orissa government and Posco-India lapsed on June 21, 2010 and is yet to be renewed.

While many issues relating to possible changes in the fresh MoU were settled through discussion, the controversial export of iron ore provision in the lapsed document continued to remain a major hurdle.

The provision of iron ore export by the company has been questioned by many including Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. While, according to the final forest clearance for the project on May 2, Ramesh said he would like to see the provision of iron ore export completely avoided in the revised MoU.

PTI