NMDC setting up Rs12,000 crore steel plant in Chhattisgarh

Mumbai: Public sector National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) will invest about Rs12,000 crore for setting up an integrated steel plant in Chhattisgarh with an annual capacity of three million tonnes, media reports said.

Last year, three public sector units - Steel Authority of India (SAIL), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) - had joined hands to set up the plant. But, earlier this year, NMDC said it would execute the project alone. 
 
The foundation stone for the project will be laid tomorrow jointly by steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh at village Nagarnar in Bastar district, NMDC sources said.

NMDC had already acquired 403 hectares land in 2001 from 303 farmers in four villages for setting up a steel plant based on Romelt technology that is used for extracting iron from iron-bearing mine wastes. Nagarnar is one of the four villages along with Kasturi, Amagura and Maganpur there.

The foundation stone for the project was laid in September 2003 by then deputy prime minister LK Advani at Nagarnar village. But the project was deadlocked as NMDC's foreign collaborator, Moscow Institute for Steel and Alloys (MISA), refused to provide the Romelt technology.

The new steel unit will come up at the same site where the NMDC has already acquired land, which is located along the National Highway 43, some 20 km from Jagdalpur, the district headquarters of Bastar.

NMDC has three massive iron ore mining sites in Bastar region's Bailadila hills of Dantewada district where it mines 20.5 million tonnes of its total annual iron ore production of 27 million tonnes.