In first official reaction after two steel companies scrapped their committed investments worth $18-billion citing project delays and issues with land acquisition, heavy industries minister Praful Patel today said the decision by ArcelorMittal and Posco would dent the country’s image and that this calls for deeper "introspection" and underlined the need for transparent and simple processes in tune with the rest of the world. "Posco and Arcelor plants not going ahead is not a good sign for us. This would cause both in India and abroad an impression that in India we have many constraints for new manufacturing… We have to introspect," Patel said at an Assocham function in the Capital. "We have to simplify processes, we have to make our systems in tune with the rest of the world," he added.
His comments come following the world's largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal, in the biggest foreign investment pullout, scrapping its $12 billion steel plant in Odisha on Wednesday. A day before, South Korean steel major Posco too had scrapped its $5.4 billion steel mill in Karnataka. The projects were scrapped mainly due to inordinate delays, problems in acquiring land and securing raw material linkages, among others. "The world community comes to invest in our country. They will not do so until they are assured that our laws, our systems, our rules and regulations are as transparent and as easy for them to be as they would do it in their own country," Patel said.
He said both ArcelorMittal and Posco cancelled their projects despite the country having abundant reserves of iron ore, land, water and coal. "We as a nation, somewhere has to sit and introspect as to how we take and make all the wheels of the economy … move in sync with each other to achieve these objectives," he said. "Why we should not be able to be one of the finest steel producers and at the most I would say the cost effective steel producers in the world. We don't seem to have an answer for that. We have been discussing all these things." He said there was a need for job creation and "need to have a sound economic development to be achieved in this country." The solution to country's problems like unemployment, poverty and hunger "can only be through economic progress and development." Also he underlined the need for dealing the issues meaningfully besides giving a boost to manufacturing.
