Public hearing booster for Tata Steel Bastar plant

Tata Steel made a big headway in setting up a steel plant in Chhattisgarh with the successful completion of the public hearing for environment clearances held in Bastar on Monday.

“With efforts from all quarters, the environment clearances public hearing held for setting up a Tata Steel plant in Bastar was successful,” Bastar District Collector M S Paraste told Business Standard.

Most of the villagers attending the hearing gave their consent for the steel plant, Paraste said, adding that the people of Bastar should be congratulated as the proposed steel plant would change the life of the tribal-dominated region.

“Industrialisation in Bastar was needed to pull out the tribals from the clutches of poverty and deprivation,” the Bastar Collector said. As the region lacked mega industry, Bastar remained cut off from the mainstream of the development, he added.

 

According to Paraste, the work for setting up the steel plant would start soon after the crop harvest (within two months). “The district administration would start the land acquisition process as accordingly with the established norms,” he added.

The Tata Steel would require about 2,044 hectares of land for setting up the 5.5 million tonnes per annum green-field integrated steel plant in Lohandiguda of Bastar district. The company had inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chhattisgarh government in June 2005 for the project. In all, 1,707 families from 10 villages would be affected from the project that would pull an investment of about Rs 20,000 crore in the state. The Vice President of Tata Steel’s Chhattisgarh project, Varun Jha along with other senior officials was present during the hearing.