Mittal set to dump Jharkhand, Orissa projects

ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, is close to pulling out of its Rs95,000 crore plan to build two large steel plants in in Orissa and Jharkhand, its chairman Laxmi Mittal told Financial Times in London.

Delays in persuading farmers and others to sell the land he needs for the developments in the two states were "unacceptable", Mittal told the FT. The projects were to be the centrepiece of the London-based billionaire's efforts to increase his presence in India.

"If we cannot make progress in these two sites, we will have to abandon the idea of starting the projects there and look for other places in India for our expansion," Mittal said.

Although he said he was committed to building at least one steel plant in India, abandoning his plan to have two sites producing between them about 24 million tonnes of steel a year by around 2015 would be a big blow, and would delay by several years his plans to have a sizeable presence in India.

Mittal, whose company has very little presence in India, said people here had to be "educated" into supporting gradual industrialisation, including the need to build new steel plants on agricultural land.

Mittal, whose company has been working on its planned Indian plants for more than two years, thinks that by 2020 India will be making four times as much steel as it does now.