Tata Steel expects SEZ notification for Gopalpur next month

SEZ has potential to attract investments worth Rs 15,000 cr in defence, electronics, LEDs and solar cells

Tata Steel today said it expected the industrial park at Gopalpur to be notified as a Special Economic zone (SEZ) next month. The steel maker is the anchor tenant for the multi-product SEZ coming up at Gopalpur in south Odisha.

"We hope to get the SEZ notification for Gopalpur from the Government of India in November. By early December, we would launch Gopalpur as an investment destination. We have already talked to investors in China who are keen to invest on the Gopalpur SEZ. But the investors are not in a position to commit investments unless there is the SEZ notification", said Arun Misra, vice president (Gopalpur project) of Tata Steel and managing director, Tata Steel SEZ.

Misra said, the Gopalpur SEZ has the potential to attract investments of the order of Rs 15,000 crore. Investments are expected to flow in areas like defence, electronics, LEDs (light emitting diodes) and solar cells.

Tata Steel has roped in Ernst & Young as the consultant for the project while Singapore-based Jurong has been engaged for designing the master plan.

As an anchor tenant, Tata Steel is developing 55,000 tonne per annum ferro chrome plant at an estimated cost of Rs 541 crore. The plant is scheduled to be commissioned by December this year.

Meanwhile, Tata Steel's three million tonne greenfield steel capacity at Kalinganagar (in Jajpur district) is expected to be commissioned in three months.

"The coke oven plant of our Kalinganagar unit has started production. We have also started heating of our blast furnace. A steel plant has many components and the commissioning cycle takes three to six months to complete. We hope that in the next three to four months, our steel plant would be ready for inauguration", said Tata Steel's managing director T V Narendran.

Narendran today called on chief minister Naveen Patnaik to apprise him on the status of the steel company's projects at Kalinganagar and Gopalpur.

Tata Steel is setting up six million tonne steel plant at Kalinganagar of which three million tonne capacity would be created in the first phase. It has already invested around Rs 22,000 crore on its Kalinganagar steel mill.