JSW Group's Salboni cement project gathers steam.

Sajjan Jindal's JSW Group may have failed to execute its Rs. 35,000-crore 10-mt integrated steel project at Salboni in West Bengal due to iron ore linkage issues, but it's pulling out all the stops to put up a Rs. 800-crore cement grinding unit at the same site.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently inaugurated the commencement ceremony for the construction of the cement unit.

Ironically, former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's cavalcade was attacked near Salboni on November 2, 2008, when he, along with the then Union steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan, was returning from the same site after laying the foundation for the JSW steel plant.

The present project, which entails setting up a 2.4-million tonne cement grinding unit at Salboni of West Midnapore district, is likely to be the third such facility after Vijaynagar and Dolvi.

Construction of the plant as well as commercial production is likely to start in a year.

The group's present cement capacity of six million tonnes will go up to 16 million tonnes, Economic Analyst JSW Steel Parth Jindal said.

JSW group Chairman Sajjan Jindal termed it as 'a small beginning', but 'a lot more could follow like downstream steel, paints, besides cement'.

JSW has about 4,000 acres in its possession, but the cement grinding unit is being constructed on 134 acres.
The raw material linkage for the grinding unit, Gupta said, has been finalised.

After the cement plant, a 300-MW captive power plant has been proposed to be built at a cost of Rs. 2,000 crore, Jindal had said earlier.

ET