A working paper to be circulated among members of CII and Ficci before a second meeting of the two sides next month

Industry and civil society representatives agreed today on the need for a platform to discuss and create a consensus on land acquisition/utilisation and other basic issues in this regard. At a meeting in this regard convened by Business and Community Foundation, an agency working on these and other issues, the two sides came together for a discussion on issues related to displacement. From industry, there were representatives from Tata Steel, ArcelorMittal, Cadbury, Nestle, the Jindal group, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

Tata steel has got another breather as the Chhattisgarh government has renewed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it had signed for setting up a mega steel plant in Bastar region for the third time.

The steel major is setting up a 5.5 Million Tonne Per Annum (MTPA) Greenfield integrated steel plant in Lohandiguda area of Bastar district. The company has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Chhattisgarh Government in on June 6, 2005. The MoU was valid for three years.

Farmers allege compensation not enough

A group of men is sitting under a grove, playing a game of cards at noon. Around them, thousands of acres of land, mostly arable, lie dotted with small hamlets. There are no roads, just dust tracks that wind around low limestone stocks and through dusty fields. This is Lohandiguda, where one of the world’s largest steel companies wants to build a five-million-tonnes-per-annum integrated steel plant. But the proposed Rs 19,500-crore Tata Steel project in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district has made little headway since the steelmaker signed a memorandum of understanding with the state government in June 2005.

Agency to seek info from coal block allottees and those who lost out; roles of state governments also to be looked into

Tata Steel, the anchor tenant for the industrial park being developed on 3,500 acres of land at Gopalpur, has sought extension of the in-principle approval granted for the park, which is set to be notified as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

“The registration of land lease for the Gopalpur industrial park is yet to be done. In the absence of registration, application cannot be made to the Union ministry of commerce for notification of the park as an SEZ. Tata Steel has asked the state government to extend the date for in-principle approval beyond June 17 this year,” an industries department official told Business Standard.

The iron and steel sector is non-transparent, non-compliant with weak environmental norms and is getting away with it because of an even weaker regulatory framework

When the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) started its Green Rating Project in the mid-1990s, India had just liberalised its economy. There were fears that it would be disastrous if the country took the route to economic growth that ignored environmental considerations. The Green Rating Project was designed to find ways of measuring the environmental performance of companies and to drive changes in policy and practice through public disclosure.

Bangalore2-day GIM targets investment of R6L cr in key sectors like energy & infrastructure

Tata Steel on Thursday announced plans to set up a R30,000 crore steel plant in Karnataka at the government-sponsored Global Investors’ Meet (GIM) 2012. The six million tonne per annum capacity plant would come up up Haveri district, Tata steel vice-chairman B Muthuraman said at the inaugural GIM function. Earlier, the Global Investors Meet (GIM) 2012, aimed at attracting investors to the state,

Better regulation of the sector is needed

The environmental performance of the Indian iron and steel industry is poor, according to the latest indices released by the Green Rating Project of the Centre for Science and Environment. On a scale of 10 (the theoretical best), the global best practitioners score eight, while the Indian leaders score only two. The steel industry, if it chooses to ignore this index, will be an outlier.

Bid to prevent captive mine owners from selling byproducts; make them add value to ore.

The Odisha government may impose a cap on iron ore production in the state, dealing a blow to the industry reeling under closures, loss of production and a nation-wide crackdown on illegal profitee