Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government has taken the first step to implement Arcelormittal’s Rs 1.1 lakh integrated steel mill, which will notify the steel giants of port restrictions for captive maintenance.
The cabinet will meet on Monday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, and will clear the notice of the three-km waterfront, which has a hinterland of 2,200 acres near Nakkapalli, 70 km south of Visakhapatnam.
According to sources, the notice will be further delayed if Education Minister and Telugu Prime Minister Nara Lokesh has not intervened.
The proposed captive port is an exclusive restriction of Jinx kgpl Twin-Port Sez Complex, which is now owned by Aurobindo Group. Although the project is in a difficult situation and has never taken off in the last 25 years, it continues to enjoy exclusive restrictions on the Rambilli Naval Base near Central Capali to prevent other players from engaging in similar projects.
“Aurobindo raised objections to allowing exclusive restrictions on another port, but Lokesh issued a harsh warning to the company to get it in line,” a senior official told Deccan Chronicle. He noted that the government decided to invoke the National Interest Terms at one stage to reduce the exclusive restrictions, but Aurobindo fell into the queue.
The government also decided to cover 700 acres of bulk pharmaceutical parks in Aurobindo for financial assistance to the center and hand it over to Arcelor Mittal’s integrated steel plant. The total land allocated to the steel mill will be 2,200 acres, and the steel giant agreed to buy the land at a price of Rs 5 lakh per acre.
According to the company’s proposal, the first phase will be occupied at a capacity of 7.3 million tons per year, and the second phase will add 10.5 mmtpa to the second phase. The investment in the first phase will be Rs 55,000 and the investment in the second phase will be Rs 80,000, which is expected to be Rs 20,000 and Rs 35,000, respectively.
The steel giant also proposed a captive port to process 50 MTPA in two phases with investment expenditure of Rs 1 billion.
