SAIL In Talks With Telangana To Set Up Rs 30,000 Cr Steel Plant!

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) which has earlier declared it’s decision to establish a steel plant to tap Bayyaram iron ore, as we reported the news earlier, is reportedly already in discussions with Telangana government over the roadmap for setting up the plant.

CM KCR disclosed this in a meeting with officials while discussing the formulation of an industrial policy tailored for Telangana. The steel plant reportedly has an initial investment of 30,000 Cr and will be set up on the borders of Warangal and Khammam district.

With this, wishes of all those people who rallied for a steel plant in Bayyaram is coming true. It needs to be recollected that former CM YSR handed over the mining in Bayyaram to his son-in-law’s company even while maintaining that the area does not have enough ores to set up a plant. Again, hardly few months before Telangana state is formed, attempts were made to hand over the iron ores to Vizag steel plant. Telangana agitators rallied against the move and forced the AP Govt to backtrack.

Telangana Govt has been ardently pursuing SAIL for the plant soon after June 2nd state formation. In fact, the mining ministry has been handed over to Harish Rao by the CM as two big ticket investments needed special attention to get grounded. Apart from SAIL, NSL Consolidated expressed interest to set up iron ore pellet plants with Rs 1000 Cr.

Bayyaram reportedly has 18 million tonnes of iron ore worth 16 lakh crore, as we reported here. SAIL did studies to determine the density of iron ore before expressing it’s willingness for setting up a plant. SAIL surveyed Bayyaram, Kothagudem and Palvancha in May. However, the studies are not made public. The earlier surveys were done in 1959 and 1974 by Geological Survey of India (GSI) but even those results were not made public. The iron ore mines are spread over 5,342 ha in Bayyaram, Garla, Paloncha and Kothagudem mandals. However, governments in composite AP spread canards that there are not enough reserves to setup a plant even without disclosing any figures of existing ores. Now, SAIL is ready to tap Bayyaram and has asked allotment of 750 MW of power and 1.5 TMC of water from Telangana Government for the plant. The Government assured the supply and the present discussions are seen as a continuation of that.