Tripartite agreement for Posco project soon: Govt

"We will soon sign a tripartite agreement with Posco-India and Posco as the earlier MoU with the steel major had already lapsed," Chief Secretary B K Patnaik told newsmen after meeting a delegation of the South Korean steel major.

A delegation led by Posco-India`s deputy managing director H Chan Ryu met the chief secretary and other senior state government officials to discuss on the progress of the project. The discussion was mostly on land acquisition and environmental clearance.

While company officials did not divulge about the discussion, Patnaik said the state government was trying to acquire remaining 700 acre of land as required by Posco-India to start construction work at the proposed plant site.

Though the state government had so far acquired 2000 acres of land for the purpose, the company wanted 700 more acres for beginning construction work for setting up a 8 MTPA steel mill near Paradip.

Both the state government and Posco-India had meanwhile agreed to downsize capacity of the project from 12 MTPA to 8 MTPA due to non-availability of required 4004 acres of land. They also agreed to start construction of the project over at least 2700 acres of land by end of the year.

The state owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO), sources said, was all set to start land acquisition process in a fortnight.