Bhubaneswar: Two major steel plants are set to come up in the districts of Keonjhar and Dhenkanal in Odisha, Additional Chief Secretary, Industries Department, Hemant Sharma informed on Tuesday.
“We have two big projects in hand. While a 5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) plant will be established in Keonjhar district, another 6 MTPA facility has been proposed for Dhenkanal district,” he told reporters.
Sharma said that JSW Steel and POSCO signed the joint venture agreement at the India-Korea Business Summit in New Delhi on Monday while South Korean President Lee Jae-myung was on a three-day state visit to India. “They have evinced interest to set up the 6 MTPA integrated steel plant in Dhenkanal, though the site is a very small land parcel of around 100 acre and more land may have to be allotted for the facility. At least 2,500-3,000 acres of land is required for a 6 MTPA steel plant,” he noted.
He said that the good news is that POSCO is finally returning to Odisha. “All required permissions and clearances will be extended to the companies in a timely manner to ensure smooth implementation of the project,” he added.
On Monday, in a post on X, JSW group informed about the joint venture agreement signed in the presence of Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, JSW Group Chairman Sajjan Jindal, and POSCO Chairman Chang In-hwa. “The proposed 6 MTPA integrated steel plant will come up in Dhenkanal, Odisha, with land for the project already secured. Once completed, the facility will produce high-grade flat steel for automotive and other diverse sectors. This joint venture marks a step that strengthens India’s steel sector for the years ahead,” it added.
This came three days after JSW Steel, in a regulatory filing, informed stock exchanges that its wholly owned subsidiary Saffron Resources Pvt Ltd would become a 50:50 joint venture between JSW Steel and POSCO Group, comprising POSCO Co Ltd and POSCO-India Pvt Ltd. Saffron Resources, currently possesses 887 acres of land, including 595 acres of freehold and 292 acres of leasehold land in Dhenkanal district.
Incidentally, in January 2026, the high-level clearance authority (HLCA), chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Majhi, had approved Saffron Resources Pvt Ltd (a JSW Group company) plan to invest Rs 35,000 crore to set up a 6 MTPA steel plant in Dhenkanal, creating around 8,000 jobs.
Earlier, however, the government had asserted that the mega steel plant proposed to be set up jointly by JSW and POSCO with an investment of around Rs 40,000 crore will come up in Patna area.
Accordingly in September 2025, a land acquisition process was initiated in the CM’s home district of Keonjhar even though the JV had not yet officially announced the site, against the backdrop of POSCO’s earlier withdrawal from a $12 billion steel project in Jagatsinghpur two decades ago, which was derailed by land acquisition challenges.
The 5-million tonnes per annum steel plant in Keonjhar has also been proposed by the JSW Group and an MoU for the same was signed on the first day of ‘Utkarsh Odisha-Make in Odisha Conclave’ in January 2025, in the presence of the CM and Sajjan Jindal in Bhubaneswar.
