Plea to set up 2nd steel plant at Paradip

BHUBANESWAR:  With the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) contemplating to set up a second steel plant in the coastal region of the State, president of Samajwadi Party’s state committee Rabindra Nath Behera requested Union Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to establish the proposed plant at Paradip.
In a letter to the Union Minister, Behera said the dream of having a second steel plant in the State by the national steel major could not be realised despite efforts made by successive governments in the state and the Centre as well. 

In the eighties when the Congress was in power, both in the State and at the Centre, there was a buzz about setting up a second steel plant by SAIL in Odisha which never materialised. After Janata Dal came to power in 1990, the then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik tried to set up a steel plant at Kalinga Nagar of Jajpur. Though the Naveen Patnaik Government had signed an MoU with Korean steel giant Posco to establish a steel project at Paradip, it could not see the light of the day for reasons which is known to all.

“Now time has come, when you are the Minister of Steel, we hope you will realise the dream by  establishing the second steel plant at Paradip by SAIL,” Behera said.Apart from accelerating industrialisation in the State, a second steel plant by the Central PSU will  generate employment for thousands of unemployed youths of the State, particularly in the districts of Keonjhar, Jajpur, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur.