Shyam Group to begin commissioning of integrated steel plant by 2009

KOLKATA, 10 December: Shyam Group of Industries announced on Tuesday that it has completed the acquisition of 450 acres required for its proposed integrated steel and captive power project in Jamuria in West Bengal and will begin commissioning activities in 2009.Rs. 9,900 cr. project

“We have already capitalised an expenditure of Rs. 200 crore for the project from our internal resources and have acquired 450 acres privately out of our total requirement of 1,500 acres,” Deepakk Goyal, Executive Director of the group, said at a press meet.

He said orders had been released for more than 80 per cent of plant and machinery for the first phase of the project. Funding sanction for the Rs. 9,900-crore integrated steel and power plant project had been sanctioned in-principle. However, he said plans to tap the market for raising some equity had been put off in view of the volatility. While 65 per cent of the project cost would be debt, the remaining would be equity.

Captive power

Shyam Sel, which is implementing the project, signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) for the project in February this year with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and the West Bengal Mineral Development and Trading Corporation (WBMTDC). The project envisages the setting up of a 1.1 million tonne per annum finished steel and a 1,000 MW captive power project. “We hope to make this the fastest MoA to be implemented in West Bengal,” B. Bhusan Agarwal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, said.

Coal allocation

He said in the first phase, a capacity of 2.5 lakh tonnes of steel and 250 MW of power would be created. However, he also shared his apprehension about the coal blocks, allocation of which has not been received till now.

The group met West Bengal Chief Minister in this regard on November 14 and had been assured of an allocation from the Jagannathpur block and later the Kunr block when WBMTDC gets the allotment.

Mr. Goyal claimed that the group was the single largest private sector employer in West Bengal with 10,000 people on its rolls across 24 locations. It has operations in Howrah, Burdwan, Durgapur, Ranigunj, Silguri, Orissa and Meghalaya.