Sajjan Jindal to return Salboni locals their land

JSW Steel group chairman, Sajjan Jindal, has decided to return the land purchased from the locals at Salboni in West Medinipur to West Bengal government "free of cost" in view of the delay in commissioning the steel and power projects, which will be returned to the original land losers.

"I have proposed to return the amount of land which was bought back from the farmers back to them free of cost. This is done as due to non-availability of minerals, we are unable to move forward on the project and it's not fair to the farmers," Jindal told Business Standard.

Jindal had announced recently that the project had been put on hold due to lack of raw material linkages.

West Bengal government couldn't have hoped for better. First, it was facing a barrage of allegations in the Saradha scam and Salboni was becoming restive. Recently senior TMC leaders led a sit-in dharna outside the project site. "This is an exemplary decision. I congratulate Sajjan Jindal. The decision pertains to the land bought from the locals, not the government land. They will keep the government land and the industrialist will decide on how to use it," Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, announced at Nabanna, the makeshift secretariat.

The land bought from 485 Salboni land losers is 294 acres. JSW had paid Rs 3 lakh an acre for the land, approximately 275 per cent higher than the going rate then. That apart, free shares of an equivalent amount and a job per family was part of the rehabilitation package. However, with the delay in the project, the land losers had only got compensation and Jindal is not seeking its return.

After the return of 294 acres, JSW will be left with 4,268 acres government land, which has been leased to it for the Rs 35,000 crore project.

Although, JSW is returning the land "free of cost", it has successfully bought peace with the state government.

After several run-ins, West Bengal government and JSW Steel had reached an understanding last year that work on the power project would be taken up first since the steel plant was held up due to want of iron ore. JSW group planned to implement the 600 MW power project first banking on a PPA with the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company for 300MW.

But recently the state government cancelled the PPA. The final blow, however, was delivered by Supreme Court's decision to cancel the coal blocks allotted to the project. The Salboni project had been allotted two non-coking coal blocks and one coking coal block.Now, the West Bengal government is ready to renegotiate the PPAs for the project. "We are ready to renegotiate with JSW for the PPAs if they are interested to do the project. They should show some keenness to take the project forward," West Bengal power minister, Manish Gupta, told Business Standard.

PPAs could provide the project with the much needed lifeline as JSW Steel will be better poised to kick start the project with the power plant. The assurance from the state government may also prompt the company to bid for the coal blocks aggressively.
AN OVERVIEW

• Land in possession : 4,562 acres
• Land in possession : 4,562 acres
• Land to be returned: 294 acres
• Project affected families: 485
• Cost of purchasing private land: Rs 8.82 crore
• Total project cost: Rs 35,000 crore