The Hindu Business Line : Posco not to go ahead with ground-breaking ceremony on April 1

Bhubaneswar, March 24 POSCO-India on Monday said it would not organise the ground breaking ceremony of its proposed steel project in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district on April 1 as declared earlier.

The company said it did not want to go ahead with the ceremony as certain sanctions necessary for the proposed steel project had not been obtained so far despite best of its efforts. “As on today, certain procedural sanctions still remain to be obtained, despite the best efforts of the company. Under these circumstances, it would be difficult to perform the ‘ground breaking ceremony’ on April 1, 2008,” company spokesperson, Mr. Shashanka Pattnaik, said in a statement here.

“The company is closely monitoring the situation and trying its best to get the necessary sanctions. This will pave way for holding the ‘ground-breaking ceremony’ at the earliest,” Mr. Pattnaik said. He, however, said “the ground situation at the plant site has become conducive for POSCO-India project, with most of the villages openly expressing their support in favour of the project. This is evident from the recent successful completion of socio-economic survey as well as land demarcation work”. POSCO-India had announced April 1 as the day for the ground breaking ceremony for the Rs 51,000-crore 12 million tonne mega steel plant project as it was the foundation day of the company as well as the State of Orissa.

Reacting to the company’s announcement, the President of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, Mr Abhay Sahoo, said that they would go ahead with their plan to hold a protest rally in the project area on April 1 as announced by them a few weeks ago.

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