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Laxmi Mittal pulling out his 12-million tonne steel plant from Orissa will be a big blow to the state. Ditto, if it happens, for the 12-million tonne plant from Korean giant Posco that was to cost Rs 54,000 crore (Rs 540 billion). But it would be foolhardy to write off investment in Orissa.
In the past five or six years, the state has received investments worth around Rs 80,000 crore (Rs 800 billion) -- on the ground -- not counting the memoranda of understanding and plans like Mittal's, that are yet to take off.
"What are the big investments we've had in the last 55 years? Rourkela, Paradip and Nalco. After adjusting for inflation, this is several times that," says B J Panda, BJD MP from Kendrapara.
If things go according to plan, even the 6 million tonne Tata Steel plant at Kalinganagar may finally get to see the light of day.
Around 800 of the 1,150 families likely to be affected by the Rs 21,000-crore (Rs 210 billion) plant have been relocated and two-thirds of the area has already been cleared.
The company has brought in equipment and is pre-fabricating structures in a different location. However, everyone's keeping their fingers crossed.
But, even without Mittal, Posco or the Tata group, Rs 57,000 crore (Rs 570 billion) has been invested in the steel sector. Bhushan Steel has commissioned 1.5 million tonnes of its 3-million tonne plant and Essar Steel is in the process of acquiring land for its six-million tonne plant.
Equally important, 29 of the 49 MoUs signed by the state for small and medium steel units have taken off and, between them, have a capacity of 6.2 million tonnes. By way of comparison, Tata Steel's current capacity is 6.8 million and Jindal Steel's is 8 million tonnes.
The small mills include names like Adhunik Metaliks, Action Ispat, Sree Metaliks, SMC Power Generation and SPS Steel Ltd.
The 29 units, according to a recent review by the state's steel and mines secretary, have invested Rs 30,370 crore (Rs 303.7 billion) and have created 56,720 jobs -- 17,432 of them direct employment.
The total tax paid to the Centre till December last year was around Rs 1,626 crore (Rs 16.26 billion); another Rs 580 crore (Rs 5.8 billion) was paid to the state. The units also generated 1,034 MW of power from captive plants.
On the aluminium front, Rs 9,652 crore (Rs 96.52 billion) has been invested in three projects and, of this, the major share of Rs 8,530 crore (Rs 85.3 billion) was spent by Vedanta Aluminium on its twin projects -- a 1-million tonne alumina refinery at Lanjigarh and 0.5-million tonne aluminium smelter at Jharsuguda.
Similarly, Aditya Aluminium, which is setting up a 1.5-million tonne refinery and 0.36-million tonne smelter, has already put in Rs 1,056 crore (Rs 10.56 billion).
None of the 21 independent power producers with whom MoUs were signed have made significant progress and have invested Rs 6,144 crore (Rs 61.44 billion) -- two of the power plants, Sterlite Energy and Bhusan Energy, are close to commissioning their first phase of work and they have spent Rs 3,280 crore (Rs 32.8 billion) and Rs 900 crore (Rs 9 billion), respectively.
All 21 companies have plans to invest Rs 108,000 crore (Rs 1,080 billion) to create 26,000 MW of power.
Of the four public-private port projects, Dhamra, developed jointly by Tata Steel and L&T, is on schedule to commission two berths this year and Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) has been spent on the project.
The IOC Paradip refinery is another big-ticket project, on which Rs 2,400 crore (Rs 24 billion) has already been invested, but the Rs 29,777 crore (Rs 297.77-billion) refinery is already behind schedule by five years.
Among other projects, three cement plants (with a combined expenditure of Rs 850 crore or Rs 8.5 billion till date), an auto parts plant (Rs 30 crore or Rs 300 million) and a titanium dioxide plant (Rs 65 crore or Rs 650 million) have seen actual investments taking place on the ground though the state is still to go a long way in converting some of the big investment proposals into reality.
