By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/PARADIP/BARBIL: Even though the Sajjan Jindal led JSW Steel claiming that it will get the required land for its 13.2 MTPA Steel Plant in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur but ground realities seems speaking otherwise.It was the same place where South Korean , Steel giant, POSCO ran away midway after failing to get land for its 12 MTPA steel plant. The JSW plans to set up an integrated steel plant of 13.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity in Odisha along with a 900 MW power plant for captive usage with an investment amount of Rs 53,700 crore. Thousands of people whose forest rights have not been settled would be impacted due to this project. Of the 8 villages in the project area, Dhinkia village has now passed a resolution against the project. Other villages may also follow suit, sources said.
In a recent interview to News Agency, PTI, JSW Steel Director – Commercial Marketing and Corporate Strategy Jayant Acharya had claimed that the Sajjan Jindal led firm, which bagged all most all 4 major Iron ore and Manganese blocks under Joda-Koira circles of State’s Keonjhar and Sundargarh, is in the process of acquiring land at Jagatsinghpur in Odisha where it has proposed to set up a 13.2 MTPA greenfield steel plant but locals are preparing to oppose it.
The Naveen Patnaik led Odisha government and POSCO had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard in 2005. However, the South Korean steel giant had to abandon its proposed Rs 52,000-crore project due to multiple reasons from delay in environmental clearances to protests by locals.The pact ultimately expired in 2010 and was not renewed again.Last year in December, the hearing for the company’s project was conducted.
“JSW has plans to invest over `1 Lakh Crore in Odisha in next 10 years. Besides, JSW Steel will establish a 100-bed hospital and a school at Koida in Sundargarh in PPP mode with an objective to develop mining areas for the benefits of local people. With the full support of the Government, this development project will be established soon,” Sajjan Jindal had earlier told to Chief Minister Patnaik.
Alleging that the public hearing conducted for the project in December 2019 was a farce, the palli sabha (village council) of Dhinkia village had already passed a resolution against the project. The other villages in the project area are expected to follow suit as well.
Following this, in June 2017, the Odisha government approved giving the area to JSW Utkal Steel Limited. Thereafter the project came to the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) seeking transfer of the forest clearance. The project was then discussed in several meetings of the FAC in 2019. Finally, in its August 2019 meeting, the FAC noted that the project now requires forest area of 1,083.691 hectares against the earlier approved 1,253.225 hectares and recommended the transfer of forest clearance.
“The comparative land use submitted by the state government suggests that most of the land use is similar in nature to the earlier approval. This proposal has been deliberated in earlier meetings. FAC observed that the approval under Forest Conservation Act 1980 granted to one project proponent for a specific purpose, can be transferred to another project proponent if the purpose and land use remains the same,” FAC noted in its meeting while noting that earlier permission was given for 30 years.
The Odisha government had also informed the FAC that POSCO-India Private Limited also has no objection if the approval granted to it, is transferred to JSW Utkal Steel Limited. It had even noted that the JSW Utkal Steel Limited shall be allowed to “use the diverted forest land” with same stipulations as prescribed in clearance to POSCO. It had noted that 169.534 ha of balance forest land shall be returned to the forest department and that shall be adequately afforested with native forest species and shall be protected at the cost of the new user agency. However, this has failed to cut ice with villagers in the area, who have been against the project.
Few months back, Odisha Director of Mines had served show cause notice to JSW Steel. In its show-cause notice to JSW Steel, the Director Mines mentioned that, in Narayanposh iron ore mine, the JSW has dispatched only 2,45,829.58 MT iron ore which is 4,81,853 MT iron ore and 388. 47MT Manganese ore short of the prescribed target of dispatch and, thus, JSW violated Rule 12A(1) of MCR read with Para 8.1and schedule “D” of the MDPA.
In Ganua block, the JSW has dispatched only 34,683.17 MT which is 78,419 .83 MTs short of the prescribed target of dispatch. In case of Nuagaon block , the company dispatched only 2,56,718.98 MT which is 7,53,081 .02 MT short of the prescribed target of dispatch In Jajang block, it dispatched 3,07,173.48 MT which is 17,70,736 .08 MT short of the prescribed target of dispatch. Thus till September 21, the JSW Ltd’ total dispatch shortfall was 30, 84,090.91 MT. Calculating at conservative prices 62-65%Fe grade iron ore at Rs 3,286 per tonne for lumps.
Sajjan Jindal led JSW had won 4 major blocks which earlier held by KJS Ahluwalia Group and Rungta Mines Ltd Group– Nuagaon (won on January 31),Narayanposhi ( won on February 2) and Ganua ( won on February 5) and Jajang ( won January 6) – with total ore reserve of 1,138.34 million tonnes. With the 4 Mines, an iron ore reserves linkage of more than 1,100 million tonnes had been secured for JSW Steel of Sajjan Jindal.
The JSW has violated Rule 12A(1) of MCR, 2016 read with Schedule D of MDPA in ensuring minimum 80% dispatch of the average of the annual production of two immediately preceding years on pro-rata basis from the auctioned mines, which resulted Rs 1,154.68 crore loss to Odisha.
Till September, the JSW failed to dispatch 30, 84,090.91 MT iron ore as per agreement for which the Government lost huge amount of revenue. The Mines Director slapped show cause notice to the JSW for violation of the MCR rule. The Director earlier had written to the JSW to take steps to ensure strict adherence to the above mentioned provision and maintain the prescribed production and dispatch; otherwise it would be liable for action in accordance with the rules.
