Posco, Arcelor may get idle land of fertiliser, cement PSUs

The need is to identify free land areas, says steel secretary.

The Centre is considering of allotting land lying idle with various non-functional state-run fertiliser and cement companies to ArcelorMittal, Posco and other companies facing problems in acquiring land for their proposed plants.

“There is no land problem. The land is available in the country. The need of the hour is to identify free-land areas and compute it, put it on a website for the investors,” Steel Secretary Atul Chaturvedi told PTI.

Over 18,000 acres of free land is vacant with several state-run fertiliser and cement companies which are not operational now, he pointed out.

A staggering investment of up to Rs 11 lakh crore has been committed to the domestic steel sector by public and private companies. Projects worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore of  ArcelorMittal and Posco is yet to take off due, to problems in acquiring land in the mineral-rich states of Jharkhand and Orissa.

“It is not necessary for a company to set up a steel plant exactly at the site of the iron ore and coal reserves. It could be at a place 50-60 km away,” Chaturvedi pointed out. New steel projects of domestic companies like Tata Steel, JSW Steel are also facing problems in land acquisition, besides regulatory hurdles in securing raw material resources.

Last week, the third-largest Japanese steel producer Sumitomo, entered into partnership with leading domestic secondary steel maker Bhushan Steel but was categorical in saying it had no plans to set up an independent project here due to problems in land acquisition. Even ArcelorMittal and Posco are looking at alternative sites for their proposed projects. These global firms have even surveyed Karnataka last month for possible locations for their ventures, initially planned in Jharkhand and Orissa.

Faced with the problems in acquiring land, ArcelorMittal has entered into partnership with Uttam Galva Steel to mark its first operational presence in the country.

Another Japanese major, JFE Steel, followed similar route and entered into an agreement with the country’s largest private steel maker by domestic capacity, JSW Steel, to jointly produce auto grade steel among other things.