Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is set to increase its crude steel capacity.
The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI), headed by the Prime Minister, has issued instructions for clearance to the Environment Ministry. The Maharatna company had applied for forest clearance for the Gua iron ore mines in Jharkhand for an area of 635.986 hectares.
Now, CCI has directed that “after obtaining the requisite information from the State Government, the clearances be issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests within one month.”
According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, the clearance will enable SAIL to raise iron ore production from these mines from 2.4 MTPA (million tonne per annum) to 10 MTPA through an investment of Rs 3,000 crore along with installation of beneficiation plant and a pallet plant.
This is required for increasing crude steel capacity of Eastern sector steel plants by 5.44 MTPA at an estimated cost of Rs 43,000 crore, out of which an investment of Rs 33,000 crore has already been made.
SAIL will invest Rs 72,000 crore for its expansion and modernisation drive. This includes Rs 10,000 crore for mining activities, Rs 19,000 crore for steel plants at Bhilai (Madhya Pradesh) and Salem (Tamil Nadu). The remaining Rs 43,000 crore is planned to be spent for steel plants in Bokaro (Jharkhand), Durgapur (West Bengal), Rourkela (Odisha) and Burnpur (West Bengal).
This expansion and modernisation of the various plants will take the iron ore requirement to 39 million tonnes from the current 24 million tonnes.
Other Approvals
The statement also mentioned CCI’s decision on NELP (New Exploration Licensing Policy) oil and gas blocks for exploration and production activities.
In its meeting last week, the committee cleared 25 NELP blocks for continued exploration of oil and gas, out of the 31 blocks where work had been stopped on account of security restrictions imposed by the Ministry of Defence.
Now, an investment of $2.71 billion (approximately Rs 14,766 crore) already made in these blocks will be put to use and a further investment of $1.9 billion (approximately Rs 10,360 crore) will be made in exploration activities in the next three to five years.
Till now, out of total 40 blocks, 31 have been cleared by CCI in its last two meetings.