Bhubaneswar: Odisha government industrialisation policy received a major set back as the Tata Sponge Iron, a subsidiary of Tata Steel decided to shift its corporate head office from Keonjhar in Odisha to Kolkata in West Bengal.

The Tata Sponge Iron board has taken a decision to shift the company’s registered office from Odisha to West Bengal. The decision would be finalised at the 36th Annual General Meeting(AGM) which is going to be held at Joda in Keonjhar on July 15th, 2019,

The company board has decided to change the name of the company to Tata Steel Long Products Ltd.

Tata Sponge, where in Tata Steel holds 54.5% stakes, has recently completed the acquisition of the steel business of Usha Martin dishing out Rs3,468.63 crore. Usha Martin’s steel business includes one million tonne steel alloy plant near Jamsedpur in Jharkhand, a operative iron ore mine, a coal mine under development and a captive power plant.

Tata Sponge’s decision to shift its corporate head office from Joda in Odisha to Kolkata in West Bengal is likely to generate lot of protest from the state government and others in Odisha. The state government’s industrial policy encourages investments by corporate houses in the state. During the last decade, the state government had insisted that the South Korean steel major POSCO to have its corporate office in the state. Not only that a plot of land was allotted in favour of the company to construct its corporate office in Bhubaneswar.