BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government on Saturday formally announced that it has cancelled the land allotted to South Korean steel major Posco for setting up a mega steel facility near Paradip

“The state-owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) has informed Posco-India in a letter that the land allotted to it has been cancelled as the land was not utilised even three years after the allotment,” Industries Minister Debi Prasad Mishra told reporters.

The minister said that Posco had also defaulted on land dues worth Rs 54 crore for which IDCO held back transfer of balance land to the company. Earlier, Posco had informed IDCO in a letter about its failure to start work on the proposed 12-mtpa steel plant project near Paradip and requested the Odisha government to take back the acquired land. The development came a day after JSW chief Sajan Jindal met Odisha Chief Secretary A P Padhi and said that Posco’s site could be a location for his company to set up a 10 mtpa greenfield steel mill. In a letter to Posco India, IDCO said about its decision to cancel allotment of 1,880 acres of land handed over to the company for the steel project. The state government had acquired 578 acres of non-forest land and 1,301 acres of forest land at Kujang and Erasama tehsil in Jagatsinghpur district for the purpose of setting up Posco project at an investment of Rs 52,000 crore. Mishra said that the state industries department had acquired 2,700 acres of land for the Posco project. Out of which, 1,800 acre was handed over to the company while the remaining land was in the possession of the state government. On June 22, 2005, Posco India had signed an MoU with the Odisha government to set up a 12 mtpa steel plant at an investment of Rs 52,000 crore near Paradip. Though the tenure of the MoU ended in 2010, it was renewed again.—PTI