The government has invited expressions of interest (EoIs) for the strategic sale of NMDC’s steel plant at Nagarnar. It plans to offer a 50.79 per cent stake in the company.

The bidder should have a net worth of at least Rs 5,000 crore, and bids can be submitted as a consortium. Interested bidders need to submit EOIs on or before January 27, while the last date for submission of query is December 29, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said.

NMDC is setting up a 3-million tonnes per annum (MTPA) NMDC Iron and Steel Plant (NISP) at Nagarnar near Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh. NISP is under construction and is likely to be commissioned by March 2023.

In October 2020, the Union cabinet gave its ‘in-principle’ approval to the demerger of NISP from NMDC and strategic disinvestment of the resulting entity by selling the entire stake of the government of India.