Don't acquire excess land: Minister to steel cos

Amid agitation against land acquisition for the Rs 54,000-crore (Rs 540 billion) Posco steel project in Orissa, the Centre on Friday warned the industry against creating a land-bank in excess of requirement.

"I fully endorse ...I support the opposition that the land more than the required, should not be acquired," Union Minister for Steel Virbhadra Singh told PTI in an interview on completion of a year of the UPA-II government.

The comments come amid strong political protests against land acquisition by global steel majors Posco and ArcelorMittal, whose much-touted multi billion dollar projects are still awaiting ground-breaking.

He, however, said the Rs 150,000 crore projects of Posco and ArcelorMittal have remained stuck for almost five years because of the bottlenecks related to land acquisition in Orissa and Jharkhand.

The issue needs to be resolved by striking a balance between the "welfare of the tribals and the genuine land requirement by the investors", he said.

With change in technology and plant design, big size equipment requiring huge tracts of land is not required.

"Now it is no longer necessary to acquire that much of land," the Minister said.

Paradip, where the South Korean giant Posco has proposed to set up a 12-million tonnes plant has been in the grip of violent protests by farmers and Left-backed Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti against land acquisition for past several weeks.

Faced with protests, ArcelorMittal was also forced to shift plans to set up the project in Bokaro from Khunti-Gumla in Jharkhand. ArcelorMittal has sought 8,000 acres of land.

Under pressure, the Orissa government has agreed to reduce the sanction of land by 300 acres out of 4,004 acres sought by the company.

Singh said there must be an audit of the land demand.

"There must be an assessment whether what they are asking for is actually required," he said.

Referring to his recent meetings with ArcelorMittal and Posco chiefs-- L N Mittal and Chung Joon-yang respectively, the minister said he had asked them "to be generous to the tribal people as they are very much attached to their land."

Asked about the delays in the big-ticket projects, Singh said the issue was related to state governments of Orissa and Jharkhand and his Ministry was in constant touch with them.

"Prime minister has also written letters to state governments to expedite the matter... We are facilitators, we try to remove hurdles," he said, hoping for a breakthrough in the next 4-5 months.