Mail News Service
Barbil, Feb 12: A public hearing was held today on the proposed expansion programme of Rungta Mines Ltd at Karakhendra and Karakhola in Barbil Tahsil of Kendujhar district of Odisha. DRDA Project Director Dr Uddhav Chandra Majhi presided the public hearing with Kendujhar pollution Control Board RO Pushkar Chandra Behra and Deputy Pollution Control Board Officer Nivedita Das Bebarta. Rungta Mines Ltd was represented by Senior General Manager (Commercial) Pranay M Dev, Additional GM (Works) Charan Kumar Jena who gave detailed explanations on the two expansion projects. Other high level company officials present at the public hearings included Joint VP Ramu Agrawal, AVP (Logistics) Rampal Chowdhary, GM (Liaison) BR Padhi, DGM (Personal) BR Das and DGM (HR) Elaine Rauth.
The first public hearing was held on the expansion programme of the Karakhendra Steel Plant whose annual production output or 0.121 million tons was to be raised to 0.606 million tons and the power plant capacity of 121 MW. 50 persons gave their views verbally while 16 others presented their observations in writing.
The total cost of the project will be Rs 1,898.69 crore and the completion period would take 45 months. On completion of the project 1,080 persons would be employed.
The second project opened for public hearing pertained to raising of productivity of the Karakhola Sponge Iron Plant from 0.18 to 0.5775 million tons and enhancing production of the Power Plant from 22 to 109 MW. 47 persons gave their opinions verbally while 38 others did so in writing. Issues regarding environment protection, jobs, education and health were mentioned as conditions and accepted in the meeting for the expansion projects.
With the completion of the Karakhola Sponge Iron expansion project 1,444 persons would be provided employment.
Other government officials present in the public hearing were Champua Deputy Mayor Pratap Pritimay, Barbil Revenue Officer Alok Patel, Municipality EO Abhishek Panda, Barbil SDPO Himanshu Shekhar Behra, police station OCs and Sis. Three platoons of police force were posted at the hearing site.