Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to inaugurate a Rs 4,500 crore integrated steel plant — the first such industrial project in the Jungle Mahal region that started in her tenure — at Raghunathpur in Purulia district on Tuesday, with the hope of bringing more jobs in the backward district.

Purulia — one of the four districts of Jungle Mahal — is drought-prone and has few job opportunities in the absence of big industries.

The land is mostly single-crop or unfertile for cultivation.

A large number of people from Purulia go to neighbouring West Burdwan, an industrial belt, for work in factories as labourers or work as migrant workers in other states.

The authorities of Shyam Steel Works Private Ltd of the Shyam Steel group, a secondary steel manufacturing company, have pledged to create 8,000-odd direct employment opportunities once the plant starts working at full capacity.

"We will be able to create employment for nearly 8,000 people once we start production in full swing. Initially, 2,500 workers, mostly from the district were engaged, and among them were 359 from land-loser families," said Bipul Panigrahi, senior general manager of the company.

The steel plant with a capacity of 1.19 mtpa (million tonnes per annum) is coming up on a 600-acre plot at the Jungle Sundari Karmanagari, formerly known as Raghunathpur Industrial Park of the WBIDC in Purulia. Construction started in April last year. The company has already invested Rs 1,500 crore in the first phase.

A view of the interiors of the plant.

Shyam Steel has three more factories in neighbouring West Burdwan's Durgapur and Mejia in Bankura with a combined capacity of 2.84 mtpa with an investment of Rs 2,000 crore.

During the Left regime, an attempt at industrialisation was made in the then Maoist-hit Jungle Mahal when Jindal Steel Works announced setting up a 10 million tonne integrated steel plant on 4,700 acres at Salboni in West Midnapore. But the Jindals later drastically scaled back their plans and the mega industrial project could not materialise.

A cement plant of 3.8 mtpa capacity along with a captive power and railway siding of the JSW is operating there now. The facility is located on 400-500 acres.

Another mega steel project of Jai Balaji Industries at Raghunathpur announced during the Left regime also did not take off. The 5 mtpa steel plant along with a 3 mtpa cement plant and 1,215 megawatt power plant were supposed to come up on 4,000 acres.

Trinamul leaders in Purulia said that the inauguration of the steel plant would boost employment in Jungle Mahal as well as their party's image ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. "This will be our big achievement here. We can now tell people that our government has created jobs by bringing in such a big steel plant here. They will not have to go elsewhere now for jobs," said Soumen Belthoria, Trinamul Purulia district president.