India’s first Steel Park to come up in Vizag at a cost of Rs 650cr

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, April 8, 2014:  India’s first ‘Steel Park’ with a unique plug and play concept is set to come up at Parawada in Vizag. The steel park promoters will provide raw material, space, technology and marketing for at least 20 firms in one place.

The over all capacity of the industrial park is likely to be approximately 7-8lakh tonnes per annum and captive power plant of 25MW. Korean technology will be used for steel production. The Park, at an investment of around Rs 650 crs will come up with centralized facilities. Work is expected to commence in June.

The new Steel Park will help steel making industries to expand their capacity. Various end to end products will be produced at the Park. It will come up on an area of 102 acres with common areas for the ancillary units guided by a pilot company which will be accommodated in the premises. 

Facilities like effluent treatment plant, water treatment plant, guest houses, labor quarters,  raw material storage, end product storage house, mechanical sheds, internal material handling logistics, will be provided commonly to all the units.

“This will be an entirely new concept. A new enthusiastic entrepreneur or those having an established steel factory and wanted to expand their capacities can just walk in to our ‘Steel Park’  with their requirements. We will provide everything for them from logistics to infrastructure on lease basis and raw material. More ancillary units, there will be good employment also,” the promoter of the Park, Lalitanjali Group, CEO, Rahul Rao told this newspaper.

The Lalitanjali Group has recently acquired, Centom Industries, which is one of India's top specialists in extra high voltage contracting, ferrous alloys and steel industries with a 3000 tonnes manufacturing facility based out of Durgapur in West Bengal.

Explaining the reason for selecting Vizag for setting up the Steel Park, Rahul Rao said two major ports, better air connectivity, cheap landing cost of raw material and strategically located nearer to south Asian markets worked in its favour.

But, non availability of power is the major disadvantage, for which they have planned a captive power plant, to use heat generated during the steel production to generate power.

“The landing cost of the raw material that comes from other countries will be very less in Vizag when compared to other states. For instance, there will be at least $ 5 to $ 6 dollar difference per ton on the raw material landed in Gujarat than here. In Vizag it will be lesser. Steel market in south Asia is set to boom and there is no other place better than Vizag to set up steel factories to target that market,” added Rahul.