<div><em>Posco has told Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Corporation that it will vacate its corporate office soon, reports <strong>Dhrutikam Mohanty</strong></em></div><div> </div><div>South Korea's Posco is closing down its office in Bhubaneswar, frustrated by a lack of progress on the proposed Rs 52,000 crore plant in Odisha.</div><div> </div><div>Posco has written a letter to Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (IDCO), which has provided office space, that it will be vacating its corporate office soon.</div><div> </div><div>The Posco saga in Odisha goes back to the days of Biju Patnaik, the late chief minister, who was keen on the South Korean company's participation in the state's industrialisation drive.</div><div> </div><div>Posco was invited by Biju to set up a steel plant in the 1990s. The virtual death blow to the project came when the BJP government at the Centre took a policy decision in February this year that all companies must participate in a bidding process to own mining rights.</div><div> </div><div>The Odisha government had earlier committed to allot captive mines to Posco as the company insisted on having secure access to raw material from the very beginning. But the state government could not lease out any mines to Posco in time due to local opposition and regulatory roadblocks.</div><div> </div><div>Due to a lack of political will and absence of a consistent policy on industrialization, many projects are facing uncertainty in Odisha.</div><div> </div><div>Biju Patnaik had tried hard to set up a second steel plant in the state when he became chief minister in 1990. Since he was convinced that it would be difficult to arrange huge investments from domestic sources, he tried to bring in foreign direct investment for the project. In 1990-91, Biju negotiated with Posco to be a partner of his ambitious project Kalinga Steel.</div><div> </div><div>Posco had been asked to study the feasibility of a port-based steel plant at Paradeep. But the negotiations couldn't be materialized as the mandarins in the Steel Ministry of India observed that if states were to develop such massive projects with direct foreign participation then there had to be a change in national policy.</div><div> </div><div>Posco backed out when the place of the project was shifted from Paradeep to Daitari. Thereafter, Biju Patnaik tried to go with London-based business magnet Swaraj Paul, chairman of Caparo Group, but these efforts also ended in failure.</div><div> </div><div>Biju couldn't fulfill his steel plant dream as his party failed to get a mandate to rule Odisha for the next term in 1995. But the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), now headed by his son Naveen Patnaik, has also failed to pursue the project despite being in power for 15 years.</div>
_20241107190609_original_image_13.webp)
_20241107185854_original_image_29.webp)
