Tata Steel Decides Against Relocating Gopalpur Project

The Tata Iron & Steel Company (Tisco) has decided to go ahead with its proposed investments in the Gopalpur integrated steel plant in Orissa, ending speculation over the fate of the Rs 2,240 crore project.

Tisco will also start construction work next month on a 1.2 million tonnes cold rolling mill at its Jamshedpur works. The estimated cost of this project is Rs 2,000 crore.

The private sector steel giant had earlier planned to set up a cold rolling mill at Gopalpur first in the first phase of the project. But growing resistance from environmentalists and inadequate infrastructure at the site fuelled speculation that the company may pull out of Gopalpur and relocate the integrated steel project in Jamshedpur.

 

However, sources said Tisco was committed to investments in Orissa and would not shift the project. There has been a delay in the project because of infrastructural bottlenecks, sources said.

A senior Tisco executive exp-lained that the proposed cold rolling mill in Jamshedpur is a separate project, unrelated to the Gopalpur plant. We are not shifting the CRM from Gopalpur to Jamshedpur. We plan to set up a CRM at the Jamshedpur works after the fourth phase of modernisation ends in September 1998.

But since we are four months ahead of schedule in our fourth phase of modernisation, and with Gopalpur not taking off, we decided to advance the schedule for setting up the CRM in Jamshedpur, the executive said. The fourth phase of modernisation involves doubling the capacity of the Jamshedpur hot strip mill to 2 million tonnes.