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Worried Posco directors to meet PM

October 18, 2007 19:38 IST
The directors of steel major Posco India are expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday to discuss how to take the company's Rs 52,000 crore (Rs 520 billion) steel project in Orissa forward in the face of opposition from locals.

Posco India, the subsidiary of South Korea's Pohang Steel Company, is struggling to implement its 12 million tonne per annum steel project, although an MoU for it was signed with the Orissa government in June 2005.

Its officials have been abducted twice in five months - the latest being last Satudary, but released unharmed by activists opposing the steel plant. The incidents prompted the police to ask Posco to withdraw its officials from the proposed project site near Paradip.

Company sources said after the meeting the Prime Minister, members of the Posco India Board, led by its newly elected Chairman Ku-taek Lee, would also hold a meeting with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who is camping in Delhi.

Lee and other members of the Board would also meet other union ministers and senior officials of both the state and the central government, sources said.

The Centre had earlier this year given the go ahead to Posco for developing forest land, which would enable the company to acquire land for the project from the state government. The company requires 4,004 acres of land near Paradip to set up its 12-mtpa green field steel mill.

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