Centre: AP’s charges baseless

New Delhi: The Centre here on Monday lashed out at AP for maligning it ‘for nothing’ over the steel plant issue. Speaking to the media here after a meeting former Union minister B Dattatreya, Union minister for steel Chudhary Birendra Singh said the Centre never said no to setting up the factories either at Bayyaram in Khammam or Kadapa district.

The only hurdle was the delay in the state governments and Mecon Ltd submitting their reports to the effect. The reason for the delay was not due to the Centre but due to the delay in the state providing specific details of ‘certain financial aspects’, he said.

While this being the case, the AP government thought it fit to attack the Centre, he said. The Telangana government had submitted to the Centre that it would provide its report to the Centre within a month for clearance to the Bayyaram plant. AP should come forward similarly instead of playing a political blame game, Dattatreya added.

Referring to the two integrated steel plants proposed in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as a part of the bifurcation of AP Reorganisation Act, Birendra Singh said, “a final report on the feasibility of the plants at Bayyaram in Telangana and Kadapa district in AP, is likely to be submitted by Mecon, which has been engaged to do final feasibility study.”

On two earlier occasions, the feasibility studies conducted on behalf of the steel ministry were against setting up of steel plants at these locations as the returns on investments would be lower due to lack of raw materials such as iron ore and coal close to the proposed plants.

With both the states keen on the Centre honouring the commitment made in Parliament, the minister said: “The latest feasibility report could decide the fate of these two projects.” Telangana state had also offered to share 30 per cent cost of the iron ore evacuation line to support integrated steel plant.

“As per the Steel Policy, the focus now is on development of such steel plants under public-private partnership mode. We expect to see investments from private players in these projects,” the Union minister had earlier said.