MoEF panel recommends land diversion for Tata Steel's plant

NEW DELHI: An environment ministry panel has recommended the diversion of forest land for Tata Steel's five million tonne per annnum (MTPA) greenfield steel plant in Chhattisgarh, sources said.

The decision was taken in the meeting of a Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) held recently.

"The committee considered the proposal for diversion of 105.81 hectares of forest land for establishing a steel plant project in favour of Tata Steel Ltd in Jagdalpur Forest division in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh.

"The committee after considering the proposal recommended the diversion of proposed forest land subject to standard conditions applicable to such proposal," sources said quoting the minutes of the meeting.

They further said that the proposal had also come up for deliberation in the meeting of FAC held in January as well wherein the panel had desired a detailed presentation which included rehabilitation of displaced people, justification of forest land for township among others.

"The user agency made a presentation and explained the issues related to land and displacement of people. It was noted that the proposal requires a total of 2043.45 hectares out of which 105.81 hectares is forest land.

The user agency also explained their policy of rehabilitation and resettlement which guarantees one job per affected household and is consistent with state's model rehabilitation policy," they added.

Earlier, Tata Steel had entered into an agreement with Chhattisgarh government for setting up of steel plant in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. According to the company's website, the land for the project been acquired and would be subsequently leased out to the steel firm.

Besides, the steel major is rolling out several expansion plans, including a new 6 MTPA steel plant at Kalinganagar in Odisha.

Its Jamshedpur facility will also be adding 2.9 million tonne new capacity by this month, taking the total production capacity of Tata Steel to 10 MTPA.

For the next fiscal, the company has kept a capex of $2.5 billion (about Rs 12,500 crore), out of which $800 million (about Rs 4,000 crore) will be spent on the Kalinganagar plant.