POSCO gets green pass for Rs. 54,000cr plant

The Union Government is all set to give green signal to the South Korean steel manufacturing giant for setting up Rs. 54,000cr steel plants in Orissa. In this connection the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reportedly asked the State Chief Minister Navin Patnaik to go ahead and expedite the setting up the steel plant in his state.

According to sources the project, which was got entangled in the environmental tangle, will be cleared very shortly. The environment ministry will review its earlier order and will remove all hurdles stalling the mega project, which has been lauded as the biggest foreign direct investment in the country. The state Chief Minister has also pleaded the case of the bauxite mining project of Vedanta, but failed to get any assurance on this score, they said.

The Environment Ministry had stalled the POSCO project by barring the company from land acquisition citing violation of Forest Rights Act and has constituted a fact finding committee. But after the intervention of the Prime Minister the committee has been directed to expedite its report after which the ministry will review its earlier order. But in Vedanta's case the PM has reportedly raised the concern of the environment scrutiny of the project in which the company has been charged with violation by the N C Saxena committee and Orissa Pollution Control Board. In this case the PM has reportedly assured the CM that environment scrutiny will be speed up and will take a decision in this regard very shortly.