Tata Steel to build plant in eastern India

India’s Tata Steel, the world’s sixth-largest steel maker, has started building a plant in eastern India, after protests by displaced tribal people delayed the project by a year, B. Muthuraman, Tatas managing director said. With local people carrying out most of the work, the plant at Kalinga Nagar in Orissa state will start producing three million tons of steel in three years and eventually churn out six million tons per year, he said. The company had signed an accord with the state government in 2004 to build the steel plant. The company had placed orders for equipment worth Rs65 billion (US$1.5 billion), he said, and has asked officials in Orissa for iron ore mines, which it hopes to get soon. (August 29, 2008)