Jan 14, 2025 10:24 PM IST
A senior Odisha government official said the steel plant would be a joint venture between the JSW Group and South Korean steel major Posco.
Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister Mohan Majhi on Tuesday said the state government will sign an agreement for setting up a mega steel plant in Keonjhar during the Utkarsh Odisha programme in Bhubaneswar on January 28 and 29.
Majhi made the announcement at the start of his three-day tour to his home district, Keonjhar.
A senior state government official said the steel plant would be a joint venture between the JSW Group and South Korean steel major Posco.
During a previous visit to Keonjhar on November 1, Majhi said the two groups would jointly set up a mega steel plant in the district which would make Odisha a major steel producer in the world.
The two groups signed an agreement last year to develop an integrated steel plant in India with an initial capacity of 5 million tonnes per annum.
Two patches of land have already been identified for the proposed project in the district.
Majhi, who represents the underdeveloped, but mineral-rich Keonjhar, has been stressing faster development of the region. Last year, he constituted a dedicated task force, headed by chief secretary Manoj Ahuja, to accelerate the pace of industrialisation in the state, with specific focus on Keonjhar district that churns out the maximum iron ore in the state.
In 2005, Posco signed a memorandum of understanding with the Odisha government for setting up a 12-million-tonne (later scaled down to 8 million tonne) steel plant near Paradip port. However the project hit a roadblock following protests by local people against the acquisition of land for close to a decade and uncertainty over getting a captive mine for the project. In March 2017, Posco announced its pullout from Odisha when it asked the state government to take back the land allotted to it for the $12 billion steel project.
Incidentally, the state government handed over the land earmarked for Posco to JSW near Paradip port where it is setting up a 13.2 million tonne steel plant at a cost of ₹65,000 crore. The foundation stone for the plant was laid in February 2024 by then chief minister Naveen Patnaik. The project was granted environmental clearance in April 2022.
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