The South Korean / American steel transnational POSCO has been lobbying heavily for an SEZ for their 12 mtpa steel plant near Paradip. They want rights to the big Khandadhar iron ore mines. But guess who else is bidding! One more case of power shifting from the realm of public accountability to the opaque world of private control.
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Look who bid for mines in Orissa - an IAS club!
6 Jul 2007, 0030 hrs IST,Sandeep Mishra,TNN
BHUBANESWAR: What could Bhubaneswar Club, a watering hole for Orissa’s top babus, possibly have to do with mining? And that too with the Khandadhar iron ore reserves in Sundargarh, which the state wants to give to South Korean steel major Posco?
Weird as it may sound, here’s the connection: BBSR Club is an applicant for Khandadhar and is rivalling the South Korean company for mining rights!
In what could be lipsmacking stuff for compilers of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the club filed its application for Khandadhar about two years ago, around the same time Posco signed an MoU with the state government for establishing a 12-million-tonne per annum steel facility at Paradeep.
The matter has come to a head with a written reply by Orissa steel and mines minister P Behera in the Assembly. Of the 169 groups and individuals who have filed altogether 252 applications for Khandadhar mines, “M/s Bhubaneswar Club Ltd” is listed as applicant number 56.
“The application was filed following a decision by the club management. The idea is to supply iron ore to steel units in the state at reasonable prices,” said club secretary Ashok Chinchilla.
The club has no plans to set up a steel plant in consonance with the government policy of value addition. “We filed the application in ‘state interest’ to ensure availability of ore to steel plants. We are not seeking profits, but would supply the raw material for value addition to other companies on cost-to-cost basis,” Chinchilla maintained.
Club president Priyabrata Patnaik, currently serving as Orissa’s secretary (commerce and transport), has been appointed “nodal officer” for the Rs 51,000 crore Posco project and is said to be involved in discussions with the prime minister’s office for the country’s biggest FDI.
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