July 25, 2008

ArcelorMittal to spend USD 300 million on R&R in Orissa project

BS reported that ArcelorMittal, who is proposing to set up a 12 million tonne Greenfield steel plant at Patna tehsil in Keonjhar district of Orissa, plans to spend about USD 300 million on rehabilitation & resettlement. Mr Sanak Misra CEO of ArcelorMittal India said that "We plan to spend about USD 300 million for the R&R plan over a period of more than 5 years. The R&R plan has already been submitted to the Orissa government."

After meeting Mr Naveen Patnaik chief minister of Orissa along with Mr Sudhir Maheshwari and Mr Vijay Bhattanagar senior officials of ArcelorMittal, Mr Misra said that their steel plant will come up in two phases of 6 million tonne each. He said the R&R plan of the company was in conformity with the R&R policy of the Orissa government. The plan envisages dwelling units for each of the displaced family with common facilities. The rehabilitation colonies will have water supply, educational institutions and primary health centers.

Mr Misra said that as per the R&R plan, ArcelorMittal will set up a state of the art industrial training institute beside the steel plant. It is in discussion with 3 leading institutes of India having previous experience in handling ITIs. The model, including student strength and the cost of setting up of the ITI, is being worked out. He however, made it clear that the ITI would come up before the commissioning of the plant.

Official sources said that ArcelorMittal planned to apply the highest standards of corporate social responsibility for the Orissa project and intended to make the R&R policy the backbone of the CSR strategy.