Steel companies that have entered into MoU with the Odisha government have generated direct employment for 27,690 people.
Mr Rajani Kant Singh minister of steel&mines said that of this 19,304 jobs have gone to persons within the state with the balance 8,386 jobs going to the outsiders.
The employment generation has been mostly driven by 30 steel units in small&medium scale that have gone into partial or full scale production while big ticket projects struggle to procure land for their mega projects.
Besides,Essar Steel,Jindal Steel&Power,Bhushan Steel and Jindal Stainless,none of the mega steel players has made any substantial impact on employment front.
Together,the 50 steel plants that have signed MoUs with the state government,have achieved steelmaking capacity of 12.66 million tonne per annum.These steel makers have invested INR 80,516.17 crore till March 2012.The operational steel units have also achieved captive power plant capacity of 1,517 MW.
The steel firms have paid INR 1,462.86 crore to the state government and INR 4,903.82 crore by way of taxes.An amount of INR 187.20 crore has also been spent by these companies on peripheral development.
Among the 30 firms that have started production,Bhushan Power&Steel is the biggest investor with an investment of INR 22,290 crore.It has achieved steel capacity of 1.5 million tonne per annum,sponge iron capacity of 1.5 million tonne per annum and CPP of 116 MW at its plant at Lapanga near Sambalpur.
Meanwhile,it is followed by Bhushan Steel that has grounded an investment of INR 14,000 crore,clocking steel production of 4.5 million tonne per annum and sponge iron output of 2.38 million tonne per annum at Meramandali in Dhenkanal district.
