Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group will lay the foundation stone for a 2.4-million-tonne cement plant at Shalboni in West Bengal in January after the State pollution control board’s clearance, which is expected in December.

The ₹700-crore cement project would be ready for commissioning by the end of 2016.

“The construction time for the project would a year,” Sajjan Jindal, Chairman and MD, JSW Steel, said here on Thursday after an event organised the by Bengal Chamber and Commerce and Industry.

The project would be set up on 150-acres, out of more than 4,000 acres acquired for its stalled integrated steel project. However, the land has to be reassigned to the cement entity replacing the earlier assignment to the steel outfit. “We hope the reassignment would be complete by next week.”

300-MW project Jindal said reassignment of 100-acre for 300 MW captive coal-fired power plant would be done in the next three months. The investment for the power plant would be around ₹2,000 crore.

These two projects would precede the ₹35,000-crore and 10 million tonne proposed steel plant.

Absence of coal and iron ore linkages had stalled the project.

Now, after the recent amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) MMDR Act, the JSW group has decided to bid in auctions for iron ore and coal assets in Odisha and Jharkhand.

He indicated that while the group would move to acquire raw material producing assets through time consuming auction processes in the two neighbouring States, the cement and power projects would be set up.

For the cement project, however, arrangement for sourcing of clinker and slag had been firmed up already, Jindal said.

The power project has undergone a change in its proposal.

Instead of being a unit that would have allocated a portion of power produced for grid supply, it would now be completely for “captive” use by different manufacturing entities of the at the project site.

Jindal said after returning two 294 acres, acquired in patches from the local farmers of Shalboni area in West Medinipur District, and reassignment of land to the cement and power projects, the proposed steel project would still have around 4,000 acres.  

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