Supply crunch of iron ore has
cast a shadow on Bengal's showpiece project – Sajjan Jindal's integrated steel
and power plant at Salboni in West Midnapore.
JSW officials have informally
requested the state to help them procure iron ore from National Mineral
Development Corporation's mines in Orissa and Jharkhand. JSW Bengal got three
coal blocks in state dispensation route, Kulti, Ichapur and Sitarampur in
Raniganj belt and the estimated combined reserve is over 600 million tonne.
Incidentally, the project is also
facing land hurdle as mutation for the entire land (4,334 acres) is still
pending. The company officials would meet state industries minister Partha
Chatterjee and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) managing
director Nandini Chakraborty on Saturday where the issue is likely to be
discussed.
However, the only silver lining
is that NMDC has not ruled out the possibility of limited iron ore
linkage for the project. JSW Group is now planning to set up a 3
million tonne steel plant and a 300 MW power plant with an investment of Rs
20,000 crore in the first phase.
NMDC chairman and MD, Rana Som,
told that it has got a couple of mines in Orissa where the production is not
fully tied up. It has also got prospecting license for a big mine in Jharkhand.
“There is no request so far from JSW for its Bengal project. We are
supplying iron ore to other JSW projects,” he added.
Leave a Reply