The Indian government has approved construction of a greenfield steel mill in the southern Indian state of Telengana based on the public-private-partnership (PPP) model, a government official said on Friday, March 17.
The official said that the federal government has given the go-ahead to the Telengana government to conceive the project as a PPP between a government-owned steel company and a private investor.
The government-owned steel company could be Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and the option of the latter even holding a minority stake could be explored in discussion between the state government and steelmaker SAIL, he said.
It might be pointed out that last year, after an in-principle positive decision to construct a steel mill in Telengana, SAIL had backed out of the project on the grounds that the Bayyaram iron ore deposit offered for the project did not have sufficient reserves to ensure raw material security for the proposed steel mill nor the quality of iron ore suitable for it.
The parameters of the proposed steel mill including capacity would be decided once a committee comprising representatives of the Telengana government have held discussions with SAIL and have scouted for a private sector steel company willing to participate in the project, the official added.