MINING AND INDUSTRIALISATION UPDATE, ORISSA - Vasundhara

Group-B) posts of Orissa Industries Servicefrom 50 per cent to 60 per cent by bringingabout suitable amendments of OrissaIndustries Service Rules, 1985 inconsultation with the Law and GeneralAdministration Department.RSP project uneffected bysteel price riseThe StatesmanROURKELA, Aug 5: Inflation and steelprices will in no way effect the Rs 12,000crore modernisation project for RourkelaSteel Plant (RSP) and the project is verymuch on track said company sources heretoday. The foundation stone of themodernisation project was laid in January byUnion minister Mr Ram Vilas Paswan and isunaffected by the price fluctuation said thesesources while allaying apprehensionsexpressed in certain quarters that the projectmay be downsized. The whole problemstarted when the project cost was announcedto be Rs 12,000 crore against the initialestimate of Rs 10,000 crore.Explaining the position, these sources saidthat when we are going for themodernisation and plan to enhance ourproduction target as per plan and approval ofthe Sail board, the question of abandoning ordownsizing the whole project surfaced. Weare sticking to our proposed target of 4.5MT of hot metal, 4.2 MT of crude steel and3.9 MT of saleable steel. And these figuresare almost 93 per cent higher than ourexisting capacity, they said. RSP hadreceived Stage 1 approval for itsmodernisation and expansion programme inMay 2007. The board of directors, Sail in itsmeeting held on July 25, 2008 has accordedStage 2 approval for the new units andfacilities envisaged in the primary zone ofthe steel plant. Letters of acceptance havebeen issued so that construction work cancommence at the earliest for setting up ofthe new units which includes a state of art4060 M3 blast furnace, which incidentallywill be among the biggest in the countrywith all support facilities. The otherdownstream facilities like one new LDConverter, one new Slab Caster, RH-OB andLHF for quality improvement of steel, andnew Wide Plate Mill of 1.8 million tons perannum (MTPA) is also getting ready forStage 2 approval. The present modernisationand expansion is the biggest in the steelplant’s history whereby capacity is beingmore than doubled from the existing 2million tons per annum to 4.5 MTPA in hotmetal production. Only if the projectoverruns its time schedule of 2011 will beface some problems, added these sourceswhile discounting all speculations of theproject having run into rough weather. n snsIndependent powerproducers to meetcommitment first:governmentExpress News Service, 5 August, 2008BHUBANESWAR: Independent powerproducers (IPPs) who have already signed amemorandum of understanding (MoU) withthe State Government and having coallinkage will have to provide seven percentof power generated by them at variable cost.A decision to this effect was taken at theCabinet meeting on Monday. IPPs, whohave signed MoUs and are without coallinkage will have to provide five percent ofpower generated by them at variable cost.IPPs who will sign MoUs, have to provide14 percent of the power generated at theirplants if they do have coal linkage. Withoutcoal linkage they will have to give 12percent of the electricity produced atvariable cost. The ultra mega power plantswill not have to provide 50 percent of thepower to the State at variable cost. TheCentral public sector undertakings likeNTPC will have to spend five percent oftheir profit on peripheral development and24