Tuesday, 02 August,
Despite repeated promises, the Orissa government has failed to keep its commitment to renewing the revised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Posco-India Ltd for the 12-million tonne steel plant by July-end.
The tenure of the old MoU had expired on June 22 last year. The state drafted a new MoU and sent it to Posco, seeking its views. The new draft MoU has the mandatory employment clause of the state government. However, it has omitted the contentious clause on swapping of iron ore, which allowed swapping of 30 per cent of iron ore reserve allotted to the company. Posco had sought 600 million tonnes of iron ore to meet the requirements of the proposed steel plant.
State Steel and Mines Minister Raghunath Mohanty, who has been saying for several months that the MoU will be “renewed soon”, added: “I have now become a liar as Posco-India has not yet responded to our amended MoU draft.”
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