Orissa to convene another meet to resolve TPPL issue

Worried over the rift between partners of Titanium Products Pvt Ltd (TPPL), an Indo-Russian joint venture for setting up titanium unit in Orissa, the state government has decided to convene another meeting next month, official sources said today.

"As three meetings between the promoters of TTPL failed to yield any result, the Orissa government will convene yet another meeting in a bid to resolve the dispute," Industries Minister Raghunath Mohanty told PTI here.

Indian and Russian promoters have 45 per cent and 55 per cent equity stake in the joint venture company.

An MoU for the Rs 2,000-crore project, which was to be completed by October 2010, was signed in October 2008. The project could not progress due to dispute between TPPL's India partner Saraf Agencies and the Russian promoters over 200 acre of land near Chhatrapur in Ganjam district.

The Russian partners objected to the allocation of land to one partner instead of the joint venture company. They also made it clear that they were not going to start work on the project unless the land was alloted to the JV company.

The state government, in a joint meeting with partners, asked them to resolve the issue amicably soon.

"However, they have failed to resolve the issue," Mohanty said. Besides a meeting here, the partners have met once at Delhi and also in Russia. But the deadlock continues," he said.