The much-awaited site selection by Arcelor-Mittal for its 12 millon ton
integrated greenfield steel project in Jharkhand has ended. The
companys London-based executive vice-president Sudhir Maheshwari sent a letter
recently to the Jharkhand chief secretary, P P Sharma, which he stated that the
steel major had selected Torpa as the site of its proposed steel project
because it would lead to eviction of the minimum number of people from the
site, while it had excellent availability of water and land for infrastructure
development. Maheshwari requested the chief secretary to extend the
state governments support and permission to start the ground work for setting
up the steel project. The steel major needs nearly 10,000 acres for
its steel project and township. Arcelor-Mittal also requested the
Jharkhand government to approach the Railway Ministry for doubling the 100-km
stretch of the Pokra-Pakla railway line on the Ranchi-Rourkela
section to enable the steel company to transport raw materials. The
company stressed the need of early allocation of iron ore mines for the
project. Arcelor-Mittals annual requirement of iron ore is of the
order of 600 million ton for a span of 30 years once the plant achieves optimum
production capacity. Arcelor-Mittal had applied for four iron ore
mines including Karampada and Ghatkuri in Jharkhand. It was also
keenly interested in the Chiria mines which were spread over 2,375 hectares in
West Singhbhum district. The Chiria iron ore deposits in the West
Singhbhum district had estimated reserves of nearly 2 billion ton of high
quality iron ore. Chiria was identified and developed by the privately-owned
and Kolkata-based Indian Iron & Steel Company (IISCO) nearly a century ago.
IISCO was later nationalized, after which it became a sick company and
subsidiary of SAIL. IISCO was finally shut down by the Union steel
ministry and referred to BIFR. A revival plan for IISCO was drawn up
and thereafter it was merged with SAIL. After constitution of
Jharkhand in 2000, a dispute had erupted over the renewal of the lease of
Chiria and Gua mines. The former NDA ruled state government led by
Arjun Munda had taken the decision not to renew the four of the ten leases
enjoyed by IISCO in favour of SAIL. Meanwhile, the IISCO mines passed
into SAIL ownership. SAIL went to the national tribunal and won the
case, establishing its right over the iron ore mines. The Jharkhand
government challenged the orders of the national tribunal before the Jharkhand
High Court where the case pending for order. The Centre has already
allocated Arcelor-Mittal 83.33 million ton of steam coal in Sereghara block in
Jharkhand on a sharing basis. The allocation of iron ore mines was yet to be
decided and recommended for Centres approval.
