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"Now I cannot say when the MoU with Posco India will be renewed. The steel major is yet to respond to our queries. The state government has sought views of the company during the first week of July," Steel Minister Raghunath Mohanty told PTI adding that the MoU with the company had lapsed on June 21, 2010.
The state government had signed MoU with Posco-India on June 22, 2005, for setting up a 12 million tonnes per annum mega greenfield steel plant near Paradip at an investment of Rs 52,000 crore.
Admitting that he had announced about renewal of MoU by July end, Mohanty said, "We are still waiting for response from the South Korean steel major."
Mohanty, a strong votary of the Posco project, had also announced in the month of June that the MoU would be signed before the end of that month.
Even more than six years after, the steel major had not been able to acquire an inch of land for the purpose of setting the project though the state government had meanwhile acquired above 1800 acres of land for the purpose.
While Mohanty was tightlipped about the reported reluctance of Posco-India to renew the MoU, sources said that the company was not ready to accept the state government`s proposal to exclude the swapping of iron ore clause which was in the original MoU.
"The Company may swap certain quantities (not exceeding 30 per cent of the total requirement for the Paradip plant annually) of such iron ore which have high alumina content with equal quantity of low alumina content iron ore of equivalent or better Fe content imported for blending, in order to produce better quality steel in the Paradip Project and conserve energy," the lapsed MoU said.
Many people including Union Minister Jairam Ramesh had raised objection on the swapping clause in the MoU with the Posco-India.
While according final forest cletrance to the Posco project on May 2, Ramesh had said "the MoU had provision for export of iron ore which made me deeply uncomfortable with this project. I would expect that the revised MoU between the state and Posco would be negotiated in such a manner that exports of raw material are completely avoided."
