As environment minister Jairam Ramesh gets close to deciding the fate of $12 billion POSCO’s steel plant in Orissa, civil society pressure from India and around the world is mounting to scrap the project. Around 40 business schools professors have urged Ramesh to look into the dubious data produced by Orissa to convince importance of the POSCO’s project of steel plant and a port. The professors, who analysed reports submitted by different...

After 10 days of back and forth discussion, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) plans to recommend withdrawal of the clearance granted to the South Korean giant POSCO for its Rs.54,000-crore integrated steel plant in Orissa. “It was a conditional clearance that specifically mentioned the need to meet the FRA [Forest Rights Act] requirements,” said an FAC member, who did not wish to be named. “We have agreed that they have not...

An environment ministry committee has confirmed that the Forest Rights Act was violated during acquisition of land for South Korean steelmaker POSCO's project in Orissa. The Forest Advisory Committee, which in December 2009 had given approval for the $12 billion project, did not recommend scrapping the approval given. In August 2010, the ministry had stopped the acquisition work on the basis of a report submitted by the NC Saxena Committee, constituted to...

The deck's being stacked against POSCO. In the biggest blow yet to the South Korean giant's Rs 54,000-crore project in Orissa, a key committee of the environment ministry has recommended the withdrawal of forest clearance to the multinational's plan to build an integrated steel plant. If accepted by environment minister Jairam Ramesh, the recommendation of the forest advisory committee (FAC) could sound the death-knell for the country's biggest FDI project....

Did POSCO exaggerate the employment potential of its Rs 50,000 crore plant in Orissa? A group of US-based experts has accused the Korean steel giant and Orissa of fudging statistics on potential jobs to hardsell the integrated steel plant. A paper prepared by Mining Zone Peoples' Solidarity Group — a collection of economic professors and engineers and others based in the US — has unravelled the figures estimated in an NCAER...