By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, November 25, 2017: The Sajjan Jindal led JSW Steel has been asked by the expert appraisal committee (EAC) of the ministry of environment, forest & climate change (MoEF&CC) to make a fresh application, seeking environment clearance for its string of projects proposed in Odisha.

JSW had sought the environment clearance for 13.2 million tonnes integrated steel plant, 900 Mw captive power plant (CPP), a slurry pipeline for transporting iron ore, a pellet plant with annual capacity of 32 million tonnes and a 10 million tonnes cement plant at a total cost of at Rs 55,000 crore with an employment potential for 12,000 directly and indirect employment for 45,000 others.

The steelmaker on October 25 last had submitted an online proposal.

“The committee has suggested returning the proposal in the present form and asked for submitting a fresh application by the proponent. The company has to furnish the pre-feasibility report and list the details for the integrated and inter-linked projects”, officials said.

JSW Steel has proposed to set up the integrated steel plant on the Blast Furnace (BF)-Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF)-Caster route, followed by hot and cold rolling for production of flat and long products. The iron ore for the plant would be concentrate slurry obtained from Joda central pumping station via the slurry pipeline. Other major raw materials like coking coal and limestone would be imported.

Odisha government has indicated handing over 2700 acres of land initially acquired for a mega steel project proposed which was acquired for South Korean steel major Posco’s proposed 12 billion ton steel plant, which finally fell through.