BHUBANESWAR: Mineral-rich Odisha, aspiring to become a manufacturing hub in India with downstream metal industries, will have an incremental steel capacity of 56 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) in the next few years, taking its overall production level to more than 100 MTPA by 2030.
“As of now, steel plants in the state have an installed capacity of about 33 MTPA, with commitment for another over 56 MTPA in the next few years as major proponents like SAIL, Tata and JSPL have plans for expansion of their installed capacities,” the state government has stated in a letter to the Centre seeking relaxation of area limits for mining leases of iron ore.
The steel industry in the state has seen as many as 45 firms sign memoranda of understanding (MoU) with the state government for steel projects and 33 other firms are working on steel plants. Of these, 10 projects with a committed capacity of 13.13 MTPA are in the project implementation stage and are likely to be commissioned soon, said an official. The remaining steel plants have already been commissioned with an installed capacity of 25.7 MTPA and a committed capacity of 47.84 MTPA.
The state government has also given the green signal to JSW for setting up a 12-MTPA greenfield steel plant in Odisha after 2020. Other steel giants, namely Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, and SAIL are in the process of ramping up capacity.The Tatas plan to add capacity of five million tonnes in the Kalinganagar plant over the next four years.
The state government says the growth of the steel industry will warrant additional areas under mining lease. The government has appealed to the Centre to raise the limit for the area held by an iron ore mine lessee from 10 sq km to 75 sq km. “To achieve the targets, there is a requirement of assured supply of iron ore, the major raw material for making steel.”