By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : Dismissing reports that the company was planning to relocate its proposed steel plant in Orissa, South Korean steel major Posco Wednesday said it will start the construction work for the greenfield project early next year.
“There is no plan to relocate the steel plant to another site. It’s all rumour. We will start levelling land early next year,” Posco India chairman Tong Hee Lee told reporters after meeting Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here.
He, however, added that the Orissa government should fulfil its obligations as per the agreement signed with the company.
“We have to see whether the government fulfils its obligations before going ahead,” Lee said.
Asked about the protests against land acquisition for the project by locals, he said: “we are trying to acquire land through consensus. But still there are some problems.”
The company has decided to separate its mining project from the steel plant for the easier implementation of the projects, Lee said.
The two projects were treated as one in the memorandum of understanding signed between the company and the government.
Posco, one of the world’s biggest steel makers, signed the deal with the state government in June 2005 to set up the plant near the port town of Paradeep in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, some 100 km from here by 2016.
There has been no significant progress on the project, the largest foreign direct investment in India, since then due to local opposition.
Over 20,000 people from around 15 villages, including Dhinkia, Gada Kujanga and Nuagaon, are protesting the project, saying it will displace them and ruin their betel leaf farming.