<div>Political parties in Odisha are taking potshots at each other after South Korea's Posco suspended its $12 billion steel project in the state.</div><div> </div><div>Both Congress and BJP held the Naveen Patnaik government responsible for non-implementation of the mega steel project even after 10 years of inking of an MoU.</div><div> </div><div>The ruling BJD, on the other hand, said the Opposition had no moral right to blame the state government over the issue as they delayed environmental clearance to the project when in power.</div><div> </div><div>Posco India has written to the Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) stating that it would vacate the office on the fifth floor of Fortune Towers, sources said.</div><div> </div><div>State Industries Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said no official communication has been received from the South Korean steel major in this regard.</div><div> </div><div>"Congress and BJP were opposing the project since its inception. Therefore, the Opposition has no moral right to blame the state government for it," the minister said.</div><div> </div><div>"The previous UPA government had delayed granting of environmental clearance to Posco project," he said.</div><div> </div><div>Mishra added, "I understand from the news reports that Posco has decided to put its Odisha project on hold and is not withdrawing from the state." </div><div> </div><div>State Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan told reporters, "I hold the state government totally responsible for non-implementation of the Posco project. The BJD government has played with the lives and livelihood of people who lost their land, cash crops... in the name of implementation of the Posco project." </div><div> </div><div>He attributed the development to the state government's "inefficiency" and accused the BJD government of misleading people in the name of industrialisation.</div><div> </div><div>Senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik said the project could not materialise because the state government selected a wrong site. "Officers selected the project site without considering the local situation," he said.</div><div> </div><div>BJP leader Suresh Pujari questioned the BJD government's sincerity towards the project.</div><div> </div><div>"What was the state government doing in the last 10 years? There is no point in blaming the MMDR Act which came into force only this year," he said.</div><div> </div><div><strong>Delays, Rising Costs</strong></div><div>Posco could scrap plans for the $12 billion project after a new law made it costlier to source iron ore for the plant, a company spokesman told Reuters.</div><div> </div><div>The US-listed shares of Posco fell as much as 3.3 per cent on Thursday to their lowest in more than six and a half years after the report.</div><div> </div><div>The 2005 project to set up a steel plant in Odisha state was billed as India's biggest foreign direct investment at the time, but it has encountered a series of delays.</div><div> </div><div>The company waited almost a decade to acquire land for the proposed 12 million-tonnes-a-year steel plant due to opposition from local tribal groups.</div><div> </div><div>A mining law enacted in March by India means the company would now also have to buy a mining license in an auction. Originally, the Odisha government had promised to help the company obtain the licence for free.</div><div> </div><div>That could raise costs for the company at a time when a global steel glut is depressing prices.</div><div> </div><div>"We will have to see how our costs will be, whether it will be viable," Posco's India spokesman I. G. Lee said. "We will take a final call only after auction details come."</div><div> </div><div>Asked whether Posco could skip the auction and withdraw from the Odisha project, Lee said: "Yes".</div><div> </div><div>(Agencies)</div>
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