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Ambarish Mukherjee

New Delhi, Sept. 13 ArcelorMittal is in talks with bankers to evolve a mechanism to provide appropriate investment advice to the farmers and local people whose lands would be acquired for its two greenfield integrated steel plants in Orissa and Jharkhand.

The move is aimed to ensure that these people, who have never handled large sums of money, do not get misguided by unscrupulous elements and end up losing their money, the Chief Executive Officer of ArcelorMittal India, Mr Vijay Bhatnagar, told Business Line.

The objective is to figure out ways for these people having very little or no education and financial knowledge get the highest possible return through safest possible investments, he said.

“We are in talks with our bankers to evolve a mechanism, an appropriate model on how to go about it so that some sort of a regular periodical income is assured. But we are very clear that these investments would not be made in our company as that could again end up sending out wrong signals,” he said.

Public hearings for land acquisition for the ArcelorMittal project will begin later this month and the company hopes to do the ground breaking in the first half of 2009.

This would, in all probability, be the first instance where a newly coming up greenfield project in the steel industry is also taking up the responsibility of providing financial guidance on investments to the people whose lands they are buying.

Normal practices adopted by all companies such as training for skill upgradation, trying to provide jobs to eligible persons in ancillary units would be replicated.

It had been reported that in Orissa and West Bengal where some people, after receiving the compensation money for giving up their lands for big upcoming projects, have ended up losing substantial portions of their funds either by misusing them or by lending them to small time local traders at very high interests but without necessary legal documentations and the likes.

Keeping in mind the Indian social context, ArcelorMittal is also of the view that 50 per cent of the compensation money should desirably be put in the name of the wife as it is she who actually runs the family and brings up the children, Mr Bharnagar said.

But since legally the money has to be given in the name of the titleholder of the land, the company plans to involve the local village panchayats and NGOs to create a conductive atmosphere for putting 50 per cent of the money in the wife’s name.

“This would function as a sort of back up for the lady to run the family and bring up the children,” he said.

More Stories on : New Projects | Mining & Quarrying

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