By Our Correspondent in Bhubaneswar, February 6, 2015 :

Politics seems to be heating up over the issue of captive mines to Posco.

The Odisha government on Friday termed as “unfortunate” with the union steel and mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s statement on Thursday that Posco would have to bid for iron ore mines for its proposed mega steel plant near Paradip.

Speaking to reporters here, state steel and mines Prafulla Mallick said the state government would request the Centre to honour its commitment on raw material given to the Korean steel major.

“The Odisha government has already written to the union government on this matter. We are going to ask the Centre to fulfill the promises made to Posco. The state government had assured Posco that Khandadhar mines in Sundergarh district would be given to it. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too had made a similar commitment. Even the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also given a similar assurance during his visit to Korea. But it now appears that they are backing out from their own assurances,” said Mr Mallick.

The minister during the recent meeting in Delhi convened by the Centre to discuss the mining ordinance, the state had pointed out that a failure to honour commitment made in the past would send out the wrong signal to international investors.

“The Union minister’s statement, coming as it does after all the paperwork has already been done, is most unfortunate,” the minister said.

Reacting to Mallick’s remark, state BJP president Kanak Vardhan Singhdeo asked the state government how it was going ahead with land acquisition for the project despite the fact that the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Posco expired nearly five years ago.

“First of all, I would like the State Government to answer why it has failed to renew the MoU with Posco. They have been attempting to acquire land since past 10 years even after the expiry of MoU but are still to complete the process. The Union Government took a decision to open mines for bidding to benefits of the states. The Odisha mines minister is only concerned with the interests of Posco and not that of the state,” Mr Singhdeo said.

He alleged that the state government was trying to cover up their failure to renew the MoU and complete the land acquisition.

“They are now throwing the ball at the court of the union government. They can take any help they want, but I am sure they would fail,” Mr Singhdeo said.