Bhatinda plant progress on track: LN Mittal

MUMBAI: After ruffling feathers with an attack on the government for the delay in clearing his company’s greenfield steel projects, steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal on Thursday sought to placate sentiments by expressing “satisfaction” over the progress made on the proposed refinery at Bathinda. “I’m happy with the way things are progressing. It (the Bhatinda project) is in time and within budget,” Mr Mittal said at a packed conference on Mumbai. “I am not wholly pessimistic and am confident things can be done in our country.”

The Bathinda refinery, which is being built jointly by HPCL and Mittal Energy with 49% stake each, will produce petroleum products complying Euro-IV emission norms, a 165 megawatt captive power plant and a crude oil pipeline from Mundra.

Mr Mittal’s statement comes days after the ArcelorMittal chairman said India was not ready for mega steel projects, a reference to the almost four-year delay that his Jharkhand project has seen due to slow approvals for mine linkages.

“We have to blame the whole country for this. We have not experienced this kind of growth and we did not experience this kind of interest in investments in India,” he had said last week, stirring sections within the government. Mr Mittal’s ArcelorMittal has estimated an investment of Rs 100,000 crore for its new projects in Orissa and Jharkhand. Along with ArcelorMittal Steel, Japanese steel major Posco, which had earlier announced its intention to build a 12-million tonne steel plant in Orissa, has also been trying to work its way through bureaucratic clearances and opposition from local populace, for the past five years. It only recently got government approval for acquiring forest land for the steel project.