The National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), country's biggest iron ore producer and exporter, would start the construction work of its proposed steel plant near Nagarnaar in Bastar district very soon. The state Chief Minister Dr raman Singh told media, "Thsenior officials of the company came for a discussion and have assured that the construction work for the steel plant will start." The company wants to start the plant with 3 million tonne per annum (mtpa) capacity."But we have asked to start it with 1 mtpa and later go for expansion so that project comes to the stream at the earliest," Dr Singh added. The project, finalised in early 1990s, has been under the thick of the controversy after the company backed out to put up a steel plant and proposed to set up a sponge iron unit in Nagarnaar, about 20 km from the headquarters of Bastar in Jagdalpur, where the state government had acquired 403 hectares of land for the steel plant.

NMDC is fully geared up to meet the expectations of the state government, according to the company sources. In fact, given the reserve position of the company NMDC CMD Rana Som informed Resource Digest that the company was in a position to leverage effortlessly its debt-free status to invest Rs 16,000 crore in the project. Further a steel plant makes immense sense since in that case the rich mineral deposit of the state can provide quality steel for the nation's infrastructure projects, felt Som.