On January 11, 2020 the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel (MoPNG&S) Shri Dharmendra Pradhan launched PURVODAYA with the aim of driving accelerated development of eastern India through integrated steel hub in Kolkata, West Bengal.
PURVODAYA:
i.Proposed Integrated Steel Hub:
The proposed steel hub encompasses of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Northern Andhra Pradesh. The objective of this hub is to enable swift capacity addition and improve overall competitiveness of steel producers in terms of cost as well as quality.
ii.Steel hub focus: The Integrated Steel Hub will focus on 3 key elements. They are
- Capacity addition through greenfield steel plants.
- Steel cluster development near integrated steel plants & demand centres.
- Logistics & utilities infrastructure transformation for change in socio-economic landscape in the East.
Key Speeches & highlights:
i.India has come up with Rs. 102 lakh crore worth National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP).
ii.Half of India’s aspirational districts are from West Bengal region.
iii.Regions with rich mineral components:  Eastern states of India (Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal) and Northern part of Andhra Pradesh collectively hold 80% of India’s iron ore, 100% of coking coal and significant portion of chromite, bauxite and other dolomite reserves.
iv.Ports:Major ports such as Paradip(Odisha), Haldia(West Bengal), Vizag(Andhra Pradesh), Kolkata(West bengal) constitute more than 30% of India’s major port capacity.
v.Eastern belt: The eastern belt has the potential to add more than 75% of the country’s incremental steel capacity envisioned by the National Steel Policy (NSP). this region alone is expected to produce 200Mt (Million Tons) out of 300Mt of steel by 2030-31 driven by Industry 4.0(trend towards automation).
vi.Members present: During the event, Smt. Rasika Chaube, Additional Secretary of Ministry of Steel(MoS); West Bengal govt industries secretary Ms. Vandana Yadav; Odisha govt industries secretary Shri Hemanth Sharma; Shri Sanjiv Singh, Chairman of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd(IOCL); Shri Anil Kumar Jha, Chairman of Coal India Ltd(CIL); Shri Anil Chaudhary, Chairman of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL); Shri Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General(DG) of Confederation of Indian Industry(CII) and other officials were present.
About Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel:
Headquarters-Â New Delhi.
Minister of State(MoS) for steel-Â Faggansingh Kulaste.
Secretary-Â Dr M M Kutty for Petroleum and Natural Gas ministry.
