Vedanta chief Anil Agarwal has lined up a Rs 10,000 crore investment plan for Jharkhand. This includes an iron ore mining project and an integrated steel plant. Agarwal, who hails from the region, said the project will mark his entry into steel. It will also complete Vedanta’s metals portfolio that includes aluminium, zinc, copper and lead.
“We will invest nearly Rs 10,000 crore in Jharkhand. The state has immense potential to develop and the chief minister, Raghubar Das, is leading the way,” Agarwal told ET from London on Sunday.
The state is hosting a mining meet this week and the oil-to metals tycoon, who was invited by the CM, was expected to attend it. However, Agarwal had to cancel the plan due to urgent business meetings.
Sharing his plans for the state, Agarwal said India, and Jharkhand in particular, is endowed with some of the best quality iron ore reserves. “We have to develop these resources with due forest and environment safeguards. This way we create jobs within the country instead of using up precious foreign exchange for imports of natural resources,” he added.
“We want to set up a bigger steel plant in Jharkhand but will start with an integrated plant of 1million tonne hot metal capacity at Manoharpur,” Agarwal said. For this, a memorandum of understanding had been signed with the state government in May 2016.
At the initial stages, investment on the projects is likely to be around Rs 2,500 crore, a company official said.
Out of 437 acres required for the steel plant, some 110 acres have already been purchased. Also, the government is in the process of allotting 41 acres of land it owns.
Source: Economic Times