After being on the receiving end of investors' ire, the Jharkhand government turned the heat back on them by setting firm deadlines and milestones for the projects.
The Jharkhand government held a review meeting with 41 investors and gave them a deadline of one-and-half months to submit requisitions for land.
A K Singh, industry secretary, Jharkhand government said, the investors had been given milestones for submitting applications for land. They could either give requisition for land or directly acquire land.
The timeframe set for the investors differed for the companies but for most of the companies it was one and a half months. Many of the companies, which include Mittal Steel, had not submitted requisition for land. Singh said, Mittal Steel had said that it would submit its application in six weeks' time.
A special cell would be set up by the government under the district commissioner and the Jharkhand Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation would provide assistance in the process.
"More people would be required by the government for expediting the process," said Singh. The meeting with investors was held to take stock of the different memoranda of understanding that had been signed. Out of the 45 MoUs that had been signed, 41 investors turned up for the meeting.
Singh said the companies were also asked to submit their detailed project report at the earliest. When asked whether milestones had been set for mine allocation, Singh said, let the companies first submit their applications for land.
"How do we know who are the actual investors, if they don't submit applications for land," he said.
Milestones had been set on each of the processes and critical aspects of the projects like water supply, power, environmental assessment, manpower requirement, land use, welfare measures, among others, Singh said.
The review meeting assumed significance in the wake of recent discontent showed by major investors over the slow progress in Jharkhand. The issue came to the fore when Mittal Steel expressed his interest in setting up a similar project in Orissa.
The bone of contention has been allocation of mines. Of the 3.7 billion tonne proven reserves of iron ore in Jharkhand, most of the mines had already been allocated to different companies with Chiria accounting for around 2 billion tonne.
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