Bhubaneswar: The Union government has blamed the state government for scrapping the proposed steel plant deal with South Korean Posco company.
Addressing reporters here Friday, Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said the country’s biggest FDI – the Rs 52,000 crore Posco project could not be retained in the state because of the state government failure to complete land acquisition process.
“Land acquisition was the major problem for the project. When Modi government assumed power in 2014 it wanted to amend land acquisition laws of 2013. This could have speeded up land acquisition process. I had piloted the amendment bill. But the state government opposed that,” Singh said.
The state government’s opposition to the NDA government’s amendment of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 also added to Posco’s woes, he said. “The NDA government had to withdraw the bill as it did not have adequate strength in Rajya Sabha at that time. Ultimately, land acquisition is a state subject. The state government should have speeded up land acquisition,” the minister said.
Stating that India is targeting a 300 million tonne a year steel production capacity by 2030-31, Singh said Orissa’s Kalinganagar industrial town has the potential to contribute 20 per cent of the country’s target.
In order to increase domestic consumption, he said exhibitions would be organised across the country in August where public sector undertakings and other stakeholders would be asked to showcase their products.
The Minister said Steel Policy 2017 seeks to increase per capita steel consumption to 160 kg by 2030 from the existing 64 kg.
The state government has also blamed the Centre’s MMDR (Amendment) Act for which the Posco project could not be implemented. As the new MMDR Act made it mandatory for all to come through the auction route to get mining linkage, Posco preferred not to proceed further, said steel and mines minister Prafulla Mallik.
Though Posco has not officially announced its withdrawal from the project, the South Korean steel major has already returned land to the state government it had taken for setting up its proposed 12 mtpa mega steel facility near Paradip.
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