New Delhi, June 16 (IANS) Ahead of External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s visit to Seoul, the government Wednesday said it has given all requisite clearances to the $12 billion POSCO steel project and left it to the Orissa government to take it forward.
‘The central government has given all clearances. It’s now for the state government to move the project forward,’ Gautam Bambawale, joint secretary in charge of East Asia in the external affairs ministry, told reporters here.
‘We hope it will get off the ground soon,’ he said when asked about the status of the South Korean POSCO steel project at Jagatsinghpur district in Orissa.
The project will figure in the discussions when Krishna meets his South Korean counterpart Yu Myung-hwan for wide-ranging discussions in Seoul Friday.
Krishna begins his three-day visit to South Korea Thursday. He will also call on President Lee Myung-bak.
During his state visit to India in January this year, the South Korean president, chief guest at the Republic Day function, had expressed hope that the project will become ‘an exemplary model of industrial cooperation that combines Korea’s know-how in the steel industry and capital with India’s resources and market’.
When it was proposed a few years ago, POSCO had committed to the largest FDI in India ever valued at $12 billion for the steel project.
The project is languishing due to procedural issues relating to the allocation of land.
