Gopalpur Industrial Park by Tata Group to be ready by 2013

BERHAMPUR: Tata Steel expects to commission its proposed ferroalloys plant and bar mill at its industrial park at Gopalpur by March 2013. "Our industrial park project at Gopalpur is scheduled for commissioning between October 2012 and March 2013", H M Nerurkar, managing director of Tata Steel told reporters after emerging out of a meeting with the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.B K Pattnaik, the state Chief Secretary, said, "Tata Steel has informed us that they are proceeding with the site levelling and boundary wall construction work for their industrial park project at Gopalpur. The company is also going to conduct roadshows to attract investors for the project. Tata Steel is coming up with a desalination plant at Gopalpur and we have asked the company to make arrangements for supplying water from this plant to the residents of Berhampur." Tata Steel, which is playing the role of an anchor tenant for an industrial park at Gopalpur, had lined up two projects- a 50,000 tonne per annum ferroalloys plant and 4,00,000 tonne per annum bar mill there. The company would invest Rs 1,000 crore on these two projects which would initially create employment for 1000 people. While the ferroalloys plant will cost about Rs 200 to 250 crore, the bar mill will be set up at an investment of Rs 750 to Rs 800 crore. This will be the third ferroalloys plant of Tata Steel in Orissa. For the bar mill, the company intends to get the ingots from Jamshedpur by rail and road. Similarly, the company will source raw material for the ferroalloys plant, which will be a backward integration project for the proposed six million tonne plant at Kalinganagar, from its chromite mines in Sukinda valley.