ArcelorMittal acquires land for Bokaro project

Ranchi : World’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal has inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the villagers of Bokaro for a proposed 12-million-tonne steel project.

The company has singed the MoU with villagers for over 300 acres and hopes to sign more MoUs for the remaining 1,000 acres by this year-end, said a senior official of ArcelorMittal here.

The Indian unit of the USD 65 billion enterprise was now making a headway in procuring land deeds from the villagers which will be followed by sale-purchase agreements and registration of the land. The company has already been allocated 35 million cubic metres of water from the Tenughat dam for the the proposed project in Bokaro.

The company has offered Rs 5 lakh per acre and employment to one eligible person per family, as per the provisions of the rehabilitation and resettlement policy of the Jharkhand government.

The steel behemoth, which had earlier selected Khunti-Gumla as the project site, decided to shift to Bokaro following resistance from the villagers. The company had earlier mentioned that it will spend around Rs 50,000 crore for the project.