Steel hub Kalinganagar Industrial Estate craves for urgent action

Bhubaneswar: Once showcased as the country’s steel hub, Kalinganagar Industrial Estate in Odisha, is now craving for urgent government intervention for its survival. Most of the steel industries that came up here are starving for the key raw material, – iron ore.

Responding to the Odisha government’s call for rapid industrialisation, at least 11 leading industrial houses of the country, including Tata Steel, Jindal Stainless Limited, Visa Steel, Mesco Steel and BRPL Limited, have put up steel industries at Kalinganagar. All of them were assured of steady supply of iron ore and other facilities.

However, the absence of uninterrupted supply of iron ore and want of prompt action to the urgent requirements of the industries have left them in the lurch.

With most of the industries remaining closed since long, employees engaged in those units look at a stark future.

The state government had formed a three-member inter-ministerial team, led by former finance minister Prasanna Acharya, to suggest measures for supply of raw material to industries on long-term basis. Although the body had submitted its report on July 19, 2013, the state government has not yet pronounced any concrete measures to supply iron ore, bauxite and other minerals to industries.

As a result, most of the industries have stopped production. Apart from non-availability of raw materials, the adverse market conditions have also contributed to most of the steel industries either putting up the shutters or running the facilities much less than their actual and installed capacities.

According to reports, as many as 19,169 industrial workers have lost their jobs in the last 3  years. Of the 19,169 workers, 17,6729 are contractual workers while 1,540 are regular.

The people who have been seriously affected by the present state of affairs in Kalinganagar are around 5000 families belonging to 20 local villages who had parted with over 8,284 acres of agricultural lands for industrialisation. Each land loser was given Rs 1 lakh compensation per acre of land. In some cases, at least one member of each family was given job in the industry.

“I had earlier lost my patch of agricultural land. My two sons have lost their jobs because of industrial stagnation here. The Rs 4 lakh I had received from the state government as compensation for my four acres of land has been finished long ago. I spent the money on meeting my day-today needs and marriage of my daughter. Had the agricultural land with me know, I could have managed my family now,” said Gadadhar Sahoo, a resident of local Kharadi village. Similar is the case with Ratha Mallick of same Kharadi village whose all agricultural land was acquired for the Kalinganagar Industrial Estate project.

“Each day we wait with bated breath to find some alternative way of procurement of the iron ore from Daitary mines with the cooperation from Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) and government authorities. But with utmost regret and unfathomable disappointment, we beg to inform you operations of our plants have been completely suspended since August, 2011 on account of non-availability of ore,” an industrialist, who did not want to be quoted, said.

According to an estimate, the total iron ore requirement of all the private small and medium steel and sponge iron units in the state is approximately 20 million tonnes per annum. Although the steel industries are asking the OMC to supply iron ore at affordable prices so as to enable to them compete with other players in the market, the government is sitting over the proposal since 2009.