Arcelor,Posco fallout: Praful Patel calls for introspection

Posco and Arcelor plants not going ahead is not a good sign for us. This would cause both in India and abroad an impression that in India we have many constraints for new manufacturing8230; We have to introspect, Patel said here.

On Wednesday,the worlds largest steel maker ArcelorMittal said it was scrapping the 12 billion over Rs 50,000 crore steel plant in Orissa. The development came a day after South Koreas Posco scrapped its 6 billion about Rs 30,000 crore project in Karnataka.

The drastic steps by two of worlds leading companies were mainly due to inordinate delays,problems in acquiring land and securing raw material linkages,among others.

Expressing concerns that scrapping of big projects could make investors shy away from the country,Patel said: We have to simplify processes,we have to make our systems in tune with the rest of the world.

Today,the world community comes to invest in our country. They will not do so until they are assured that our laws,our systems,our rules and regulations are as transparent and as easy for them to be as they would do in their own country, Patel said.

Calling for introspection,Patel however,said,We as a nation,somewhere have to introspect as to how we take and make all the wheels of the economy move in sync with each other to achieve these objectives.

However,the Orissa government blamed ArcelorMittals lack of interest for scrapping the project.

Orissa steel and mines minister Rajni Kant Singh said that ArcelorMittal was never really interested in building a steel plant in Odisha.

It failed to meet major milestones though it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with us in 2006, he noted. He added that identifying land for its project was the firms task but it lagged on that front and the impression was that the company was not interested.

At the same time,it had promised plenty of jobs but it failed to take any initiative on that front as well, he said.