JSW Steel shares fall after NGT suspends clearance for Rs 65,000 crore project in Odisha

Shares of JSW Steel Ltd were in focus today after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) suspended environment clearances (ECs) received by the steel major for its Rs 65,000 crore integrated steel plant in Jagatsinghpur in Odisha. A four-member division bench of the NGT headed by Chairperson Adrarsh Kumar Goel suspended the environment clearance for three months before the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change takes a fresh call on the project. 

Shares of JSW Steel fell 1.23% to Rs 659.25 today against the previous close of Rs 667.50 on BSE. Total 8630 shares of the firm changed hands amounting to a turnover of Rs 57.14 lakh on BSE. Market cap of JSW Steel fell to Rs 1.59 lakh crore. Shares of JSW Steel have lost 13.87% this year and declined 7.51% in a year.  

In terms of technicals, the relative strength index (RSI) of JSW Steel stands at 40.3, signaling it's neither trading in oversold nor overbought zone. JSW Steel stock has a one-year beta of 1.1, indicating high volatility during the period. JSW Steel shares were trading lower than the 5 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving averages.  

Environmental activists Prafulla Samantara and Sarita Barpanda had filed three petitions before the NGT. The principal bench of NGT has asked the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for fresh appraisal and decision on the observations within three months. The green panel said the two ECs obtained in April 2022 for two interconnected projects - an integrated steel plant (with cement and power plants) and a jetty near Paradip port (EAC) were procedurally as well as substantively erroneous and detrimental to the environment on the basis of appraisal conducted by the expert appraisal committee. 

On April 11 last year, JSW Steel said its subsidiary JSW Utkal Steel Ltd has received the environmental clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment & Forest and Climate Change to set up a Rs 65,000-crore steel plant in Odisha. The company said it planned to set up the plant at Paradip in Odisha, where the South Korean steel giant Posco was keen to set up a Rs 52,000-crore steel plant. 

In 2005, Posco had entered into a pact with Odisha government to set up a steel unit but dropped the plan after facing stiff opposition from the locals for more than a decade.  

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