Indian government-owned engineering consultancy firm, Mecon Limited has been mandated to prepare feasibility reports on the construction of greenfield steel mills in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India's steel minister Vishu Deo Sai said on Monday, March 26.
The decision by the steel ministry to seek fresh reports from the consultancy firm is significant because a feasibility report previously prepared by Indian state-owned steel producer Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) found the construction of a greenfield steel mill in Telangana unviable owing to the low quality and volumes of iron ore available in the region.
The minister said that the respective state governments would share all relevant data relating to a steel project in their respective geographies with Mecon for preparation of the feasibility reports.
It may be noted that a separate state of Telangana was created by the Indian government in 2014 by carving it out of Andhra Pradesh state and, as part of the legal framework of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014 for creating the new state, SAIL was to examine the feasibility of constructing greenfield steel mills in each of the states, but the government-owned steel producer did not made much headway on such a project.