By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, October 6, 2015 : Tata Steel’s Kalinganagar project in Odisha is likely to take off by the end of this fiscal.

Tata Steel is setting up a 6 mtpa steel plant at Kalinganagar at an investment of Rs 22,000 crore amid a host of hurdles.

Tata Steel’s managing director T V Narendran met the chief minister Naveen Patnaik and chief secretary G C Pati to apprise them of the progress of their steel and SEZ projects in Odisha along with Tata Steel vice president (Gopalpur project) and managing director, Special Economic Zone Arun Misra on Tuesday.

Narendran said the company’s three million ton greenfield steel project at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district is expected to be commissioned any time between three to six months.

“The coke oven plant of our Kalinganagar unit has started production. We have also started heating blast furnace. A steel plant has many components and the commissioning cycle takes three to six months to complete,” Narendran said.

He further added, “We are setting up the Greenfield steel plant at Kalinga Nagar in phases. We hope that in the first phase of 3 mtpa would be ready in three to four months,” Narendran said.

Mishra told reporters, “We hope that the Government of India will notify the SEZ at Gopalpur in November. By early December, we would launch Gopalpur as an investment destination,”

Stating that they have already talked to investors in China who are keen to invest in Gopalpur SEZ, Mishra said the investors will commit investments only after the proper SEZ notification by the government.

Tata Steel is the anchor tenant for the multi-product SEZ project at Gopalpur in Odisha. He said the Gopalpur SEZ has the potential to attract investments of the order of Rs 15,000 crore. Investments are expected in areas like defence, electronics, LEDs and solar cells, he said.

Mishra said the company has roped in Ernst & Young as the consultant for the SEZ project and Singapore-based Jurong has been engaged for designing the master plan.

Tata Steel, as the anchor tenant, has been setting up a 55,000 ton per annum capacity ferro chrome plant at an estimated cost of Rs 541 crore.