JSW joint managing director Biswadip Gupta (left) and IACC regional president Shourya Mandal in Calcutta on Saturday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Dec. 13: Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Group is close to getting an approval from the Orissa government to build a port for its 10-million-tonne steel plant in Bengal.

The group has pitched for 4 out of the 12 bids offered by the Orissa government to investors for developing a port in the state.

Information trickling in from the government indicate that JSW may get the approval to build a port in Baleshwar district on the Bengal-Orissa border, south of Digha.

The port will cater to the upcoming steel plants in Bengal and Jharkhand.

Biswadip Gupta, joint managing director of JSW Bengal Steel Ltd, said the port would be closer to the project site than Haldia. “It will be about 110 km from our plant at Salboni in West Midnapur compared with a distance of 130 km from Haldia,” he said.

Gupta was speaking on the sidelines of a panel discussion organised by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) on ‘Industrialisation in Bengal – The Way Forward’ in Calcutta today.

The port project is likely to be developed by JSW Infrastructure & Logistics Ltd.

Gupta said his company had looked at all possible locations in Bengal for the deep sea port but could not find a suitable one. Exports will be crucial to the Salboni plant as it will come up in a special economic zone. Hence, the need for a deep sea port.

According to Gupta, production from captive coal mines is expected to start by the end of 2010. The company has been allotted two soft coking blocks — Sitarampur and Kulti — with 300 million tonnes of reserves and a thermal coal block at Ichhapur.

“We are doing exploration work now. We will tie up with overseas players for suitable technology to extract coal which are minimum 600 metre below surface,” he said.

Gupta called for greater involvement of investors on the issue of relocating locals for the development of coal blocks. “Investors cannot abdicate responsibility to government and adopt a hands-off approach,” he said.

Sumanta Chaudhuri, chief executive officer of West Bengal Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation, S.K. Jain, national president of IACC, and Shourya Mandal, regional president of IACC, and Subhankar Sinha, executive director of PwC, were also part of the panel.