POSCO gets Environmental Clearance nod for 52000 crore rupees Steel Plant in Odisha

POSCO, the South Korean steel maker giant on 10 January 2014 received environment clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) for a steel plant worth 52000 crore rupees in Odisha. The project was in the pipeline for clearance and all for past eight years.

The clearance has come a week ahead of the India visit of the President of South Korea, Geun Hye. This clearance to POSCO has paved a way to build the steel plant with an annual production capacity of 12 million tonnes.

POSCO is a multinational steel-making company headquartered in Pohang, South Korea. It had an output of 39.1 million tonnes of crude steel in 2011, making it the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker by this measure. In 2010, it was the world’s largest steel manufacturing company by market value.

With this investment, POSCO project will emerge as the largest foreign direct investment in India, which was stalled since 2005 because of the problems related to land procurement and environmental clearance.

Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha has also cleared the proposal of granting of Prospecting Licence (PL) over Khandadhar mines for the mega steel project near Paradip, as per the sources.

Image credit: MoEF