Thaindian News

Kolkata, June 3 (IANS) JSW Bengal Steel said Thursday it is going ahead with its project in West Midnapore district of West Bengal, a hotbed of Maoist activities.

“Our project got delayed by one year due to the global economic meltdown, but now we have again started work in the project site and the work on boundary wall has progressed to quite some extent,” said Biswadip Gupta, company managing director.

JSW Bengal Steel is setting up a 10 million-tonne steel plant at Salboni in the district.

“We had been working in that site for almost three years now. Till date we never had any problem,” Gupta said when asked whether the company faced any hurdles due to Maoist activities in that area.

He said at least 12-15 company workers are there at the site along with 500-600 contractual workers.

JSW Bengal Steel is promoted by Sajjan Jindal led JSW Steel, which holds 89 percent of the equity capital. The state government owns the balance 11 percent.

The company has pumped in Rs.35,000-crore (over $7 billion) for the Salboni project.

About the company’s plans to draw water supply from the Rupnarayan river, he said: “Work has begun. It will be a 67 km line, which would supply water in the project area and the investment will be Rs.300 crore.”

“This is the lifeline of the project and unless this is done, banks won’t give funds. We plan to go for ground breaking in October,” Gupta said.

Rupnarayan river is in East Midnapore district.

In November 2008, Maoists had detonated a landmine targeting the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and two central ministers, who were returning from Salboni after laying the foundation stone of the project.