India Steel Market Watch
October 7: Tata Steel said it expected the industrial park at Gopalpur to be notified as a Special Economic zone (SEZ) next month.
The steel maker is the anchor tenant for the multi-product SEZ coming up at Gopalpur in south Odisha, media reports said.
"We hope to get the SEZ notification for Gopalpur from the Government of India in November. By early December, we would launch Gopalpur as an investment destination. We have already talked to investors in China who are keen to invest in the Gopalpur SEZ. But the investors are not in a position to commit investments unless there is the SEZ notification", Arun Misra, Vice-President (Gopalpur project) of Tata Steel and Managing Director, Tata Steel SEZ, was quoted as saying.
Misra said the Gopalpur SEZ has the potential to attract investments of the order of Rs 15,000 crore. Investments are expected to flow into areas like Defence, electronics, LEDs (light emitting diodes) and solar cells.
Tata Steel has roped in Ernst & Young as the consultant for the project while Singapore-based Jurong has been engaged for designing the master plan.
As an anchor tenant, Tata Steel is developing a 55,000-ton per annum ferro chrome plant at an estimated cost of Rs 541 crore. The plant is scheduled to be commissioned by December this year.
Meanwhile, Tata Steel's 3-million ton greenfield steel capacity at Kalinganagar (in Jajpur district) is expected to be commissioned in three months.