Civil work for titanium project to start next month

The integrated titanium plant is being set up by Titanium Products Private Limited (TTPL), a joint venture company of the Kolkata-based Saraf Agencies and Russian government. The company requires about 250 acres of land at Kanamana, Sriramchandrapur and Tikiria Berhampur villages near Chhatrapur which will produce 40,000 tonnes of titanium dioxide per annum. The land comprises 200 acres of private land and 52.66 acres of government land.

The company has taken possession of about 95 percent of private land and 34.09 acres of government land, said sources in the district administration.

The delay in acquiring the remaining 16.57 acres of government land is due to the necessary procedural requirement, sources said. In the second phase, the project would need another 300 acres of land, which includes 225 acres in private ownership. The land acquisition for the second phase has also started, the officials said.

What has speeded up the land acquisition process is that unlike other projects the local people here have supported to the project. The company has met the demands of project affected people on land value, said a senior government officer. In a recent public hearing for the project, the local people supported the project. "Nobody raised any objection in the public hearing at Chamakhandi, near Chhatrapur," he said.

Public hearing is necessary to get the environmental clearance for any project. "We have got the No Objection Certificate (NOC). But we are waiting for the environmental clearance," said S.Modi, a senior officer of the company.

The company has submitted its environmental report to the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Central government.

Besides the titanium dioxide, the company aims to produce 10000 tonne per annum titanium sponge, 10,000 tonne titanium slag. The project aims to produce 69,000 tonne per annum high speed pig iron. The first phase of the project is expected to commence production in 2012-13 and second phase after five years.