JSW Bengal yet to complete financial closure for Salboni

JSW Bengal Steel, promoted by Sajjan Jindal Group, is yet to tie up the finances for its proposed Rs 10,000-crore steel plant at Salboni in West Bengal.

"The financial closure will be done only after certain agreements with the state government are signed. Otherwise, banks will not provide us with funds for the project," JSW Bengal Steel CEO Biswadip Gupta told PTI here on Monday.

Although the main lease agreement with West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) was signed way back in 2007, there has been no substantial progress on the resumption of construction work of the plant. With the new government, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee that coming into power last year, the Industry Department insisted on signing supplementary development agreement with the company before the start of construction work at the site. "We will be meeting Industries Minister Partha Chatterjee sometime this week to sort out some issues," he said. Asked if the company has sought a no-deadline agreement with the state government, Gupta declined comment.

About coal-linkage for the proposed plant, he said arrangements were being made by the state government while the company was talking to private players for iron ore supplies.

Gupta also said JSW Bengal was also working on the lease agreement to be signed with the state government for registering land for the project. "Of the about 4,300 acres of land required for the project, 4,000 acres have been registered and some portion of land from the WBIDC is to be registered and we are sorting the lease agreement in this regard," he said. Chatterjee said he was not aware of any clause relating to law and order issue was sought to be inserted by the company in the agreement.

In the initial stages, the company plans to set up a three-million-tonne plant with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore.