JSW to work on project worth 10 mn

Mumbai: Sajjan Jindal-owned JSW Steel will start the site work for the 10-million tonne project in West Bengal in the first week of February, a year after it had signed the development agreement with the state government.

“It will be a gala event as we commence the site work for our project in West Bengal. This will happen in the first week of February,” a company official told PTI.

The company had signed the development agreement with the state government to put up the integrated plant with Rs 35,000 crore investment at Salboni near Kharagpur. Phase-I, with a capacity of 3 million tonne, would see an investment of Rs 10,000 crore and go on stream in three years from now.

A brain child of the late O P Jindal, father of JSW Steel’s Vice Chairman and Managing Director Sajjan Jindal, the project too courted controversies over land acquisition.

But, the company was able to reach an amicable solution with the landowners by offering stock options and reasonably good compensations.

In fact, JSW Steel is the first entity in Indian corporate history to offer stock options for land acquisitions.

JSW Steel formed a special purpose joint venture with two state government entities with an authorised capital of Rs 100 crore in which JSW Group holds 89 per cent stake.

The company has already got a possession order of 4,300 acres of land from the state government, but to source iron ore for the project it would have to depend on the market.

It is taking efforts to secure linkages of iron ore. It would revive two closed blocks in Kulti for coal.

JSW Steel currently produces around 6.8 million tonne in its Vijaynagar facility where capacity expansion to go up to 10 million is currently on.

It merged SISCOL with itself. SISCOL produces 1 million tonne steel. Capacity expansion is also being thought upon here as well.