Cyrus Mistry to call on Naveen today

Cyrus Pallonji Mistry, chairman-designate of Tata Sons, will call on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday in his maiden visit to Odisha, to talk business amid the prevailing political volatility in the state.

Mistry, currently deputy chairman of Tata Sons is poised to step into the huge shoes of the illustrious Ratan Tata in December this year, making him the first non-Indian national to head the diversified business conglomerate. He will be accompanied by Tata Steel's managing director H M Nerurkar.

The evening tete-a-tete between the Chief Minister and Mistry is likely to revisit Tata Group's string of committed investments in the state- the six million tonne greenfield steel plant proposed at Kalinganagar, industrial park project at Gopalpur, a 2,000 MW power plant of Tata Power and the already operational software development centre of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

During his last visit to Odisha, Nerurkar said that Phase-I of the steel plant at Kalinganagar is expected to be commissioned by February 2014. The steel maker has already invested over Rs 10,000 crore on the project and the first phase would witness an investment of Rs 20-25,000 crore.

This greenfield steel plant will produce flat steel products, catering to the needs of the automotive industry and white goods.

The steel maker was also the anchor tenant for industrial park proposed over 3,500 acres at Gopalpur. Though Tata Steel had acquired the land in mid 1990s for setting up of a mega steel plant, the company later shelved the project and decided to set up an industrial park there.

To start with, the company has lined up two projects- a 50,000 tonne per annum ferroalloys plant and 400,000 tonne per annum bar mill in the complex. Tata Steel would invest Rs 1,000 crore on these two projects which would initially create employment for 1,000 people.

While the ferroalloys plant will cost about Rs 200 to 250 crore, the bar mill will be set up at an investment of Rs 750 to Rs 800 crore. This will be the third ferroalloys plant of Tata Steel in Orissa. The company is operating two ferroalloys plants at Bamanipal and Athgarh (through its subsidiary Rawmet) with capacities of 50,000 tonnes per annum each.

Tata Group’s investment basket also included a 2,000 MW gas-based power plant at Naraj Marthapur near Cuttack on 1,000 acres of land. Though originally, a coal-fired power station was to come up at the site, the project proponent had to alter technology, owing to potential threat which the power plant posed to Chandaka-Dampada wildlife sanctuary only 1.5 km away from the project site.