[Reader-list] Posco, biggest FDI, gets green flag after 8 long yrs

[Asit Das]

M(OILY) Does It !!
Financial Express Posco, biggest FDI, gets green flag after 8 long yrs
Anubhuti Vishnoi<http://www.financialexpress.com/columnist/anubhutivishnoi/1>|
New Delhi | Updated: Jan 10 2014, 06:49 IST


 [image: The breakthrough comes within three weeks of Moily replacing
Jayanthi Natarajan as environment minister.] The breakthrough comes within
three weeks of Moily replacing Jayanthi Natarajan as environment minister.
*Summary*Gift to visiting S Korean President days after Moily takes charge
from Jayanthi.

The environment ministry under Veerappa Moily has approved the $ 12.6
billion Posco steel plant in Orissa, the biggest foreign direct investment
in India.

The proposed 12 million-tonnes-per-year plant has been stuck for more than
eight years due to delays in getting clearances and acquiring land.

Top sources confirmed to The Indian Express that the steel plant got the
green signal after it was delinked from the port project.

It is learnt that the green nod came after South Korea’s ambassador to
India called on Moily last week to suggest that the plant and port projects
be delinked in respect of clearances, so that at least the former could
take off.

“It was felt that there was merit in this argument, and there was no
rationale for holding up one project because of another. So with all
requisite conditions, the Posco steel plant has been granted approval. The
issue of the port will be examined separately,” a senior source in the
environment ministry said.

The revalidation of the lapsed environmental clearance comes days before
South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye visits India for four days
starting January
15.

Posco’s integrated steel plant and port project was to originally come up
on some 4,000 acres in the coastal town of Jagatsinghpur in Orissa. Strong
opposition over land acquisition issues has, however, forced the project
now to a 2,700-acre site. While the Orissa government signed the deal with
Posco in 2005, so far no more than the boundary wall for the project has
come up.

The environmental clearance has been strongly supported both by Orissa
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the Prime Minister. Posco India had only
last month written to the Cabinet Committee on Investment requesting that
the long delayed project be fast-tracked.

The breakthrough comes within three weeks of Moily replacing Jayanthi
Natarajan as environment minister. Moily is learnt to have cleared around
15 projects since taking over on December 24. Among them are the Tawang II
hydel project and the Teesta IV hydroelectric project and, now, Posco.

A Reuters report on Thursday said Posco could also hear some good news on
its request for a licence to explore iron ore. Orissa will reply within a
“day or two” to the union mines ministry on granting an iron ore
exploration licence, the state’s mines director Deepak Kumar Mohanty told
Reuters.

*BUT CONDITIONS APPLY*

POSCO must spend 5% of its total investment on “enterprise social
commitments”, POSCO-India spokesman I G Lee told Reuters. This will mean
the project’s cost will go up by $ 600 million to $ 12.6 billion.

LEE said, “Though an additional burden has been put on us, we are happy
with the revalidation (of environmental clearance). It means the removal of
a hurdle for us.”