POSCO-India denies rumours of shifting its 12bn dollars project from Orissa

Bhubaneshwar, Aug.27 (ANI): The world's fourth largest steel producer POSCO has denied reports of plans to shift the 12 billion dollars steel project, India's largest foreign direct investment, from Orissa state.

Chairman of POSCO-India, Dong Hee Lee called on Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday to allay fears that the company had plans to shift its steel project from the State.

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Dong-He Lee during his meet with Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar said the company would commence the construction very soon.

"We have very constructive, productive meeting with the Chief Minister on our mega project. I understand there are some rumours Posco has changed the original schedule, but we never changed that one. So we confirmed our original plans and we will start our construction very soon," Dong-He Lee said.

The project is already running behind its schedule but Dong-He Lee said, the company planned to sort out any legal snags hitting the mega project by the end of 2009 and also had plans to begin ground levelling work from early next year.

"I think, we almost solved the problem already so there are no other barriers to start our construction quite soon. By the end of this year we would like to solve any kind of legal barriers and by early next year we will start the levelling of the land," said Lee.

The project had run into trouble after local residents protested plans to compulsorily buy their land for the plant, which they say could displace about 20,000 people. (ANI)