Mamata-Jindal talks over JSW's Salboni plant to be held today

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has invited Jindal South West (JSW) Steel's managing director Sajjan Jindal for talks in connection with his project near the Maoist stronghold of Lalgarh. Jindal is scheduled to arrive at the state secretariat today.

Chief executive officer of JSW Bengal, Biswadip Gupta said that Jindal was scheduled to arrive in Kolkata in his private plane for the meeting to engage in the second round of talks with the government, after the foundation stone of the Rs30,000-crore steel project in Salboni was laid in November 2008.

The project is one of the very few in the country with physical possession of 4,500 acres, but has not been able to make much progress beyond erection of a 36-km-long boundary wall. It got caught up in financial troubles first during the 2008 global financial crisis and later over certain irregularities over its land holdings. The project has been reworked with the cost being pruned to Rs20,000 crore; however it had not yet achieved financial closure.

The first phase of the proposed integrated steel plant at Salboni, West Midnapore would have a capacity of 3 million tonnes. According to sources, the land-hurdle would also be cleared soon.

The company had already declared it would achieve financial closure, for the first phase, within a month after the resolution of the land issue. The project would also include a 300-MW captive power plant.

According to industry minister Partha Chatterjee, the state government was in the process of resolving the possession of 297 acres of land directly purchased from the farmers.