SAIL team seeks govt funds for Hajigak

“Afghanistan falls in the negative list and no financial institutions will take the exposure. It will be difficult for the consortium members to put in such an amount on their own from their reserves. So we need government assistance and aid,” Verma said.

At SAIL’s request the Steel Ministry has already escalated the matter to the concerned ministries. The consortium might is even exploring the possibility of asking the Hamid Karzai government to consider extending financial assistance.

Saying the consortium needed to mobilise huge resources for the project encompassing development of mines,building evacuation infrastructure,setting up a 6 Million Tonne steel and constructing a 1,000 MW power plant,Verma today indicated success of the project depended heavily on the government’s ability to extend interest free term loans and grants-in-aid,or else the consortium may not be able to execute the planned projects.

The SAIL-led consortium has bagged rights to mine three blocks of Hajigak mines in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province and has to begin work from scratch as infrastructure is very poor in the region.

Consortium partners SAIL,JSW Steel,NMDC,JSW Steel,JSW Ispat,Jindal Steel and Power and Monnet Ispat and Energy will meet within a week’s time to deliberate on the future course of action and the first round of talks with the Afghan government.

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