Today, shares of JSW Steel Ltd were in focus after the National Green Tribunal NGT suspended environmental clearances ECs received by the steel major for its 65,000 crore integrated steel plant in Jagatsinghpur in Odisha. The environment clearance was suspended for three months before the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change took a fresh call on the project, according to a four-member division bench of the NGT headed by Chairperson Adrarsh Kumar Goel.
The JSW Steel shares fell 1.23% to Rs 659.25 against the previous close of Rs 667.50 on the BSE. Total 8630 shares of the firm changed hands on the BSE, a turnover of Rs 57.14 lakh. JSW Steel's market cap fell to 1.59 lakh crore. The JSW Steel shares have lost 13.87% this year and declined 7.51% in a year.
The relative strength index RSI of JSW Steel is at 40.3, signaling that it is not trading in an over-sold nor overbought zone. The stock of JSW Steel 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 NGT principal bench asked the MoEFCC of the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change for a new appraisal and decision within three months. The green panel said that the two ECs obtained in April 2022 for two interlinked 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 the 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 65,000 crore steel plant in Odisha. The company plans to set up a plant at Paradip in Odisha, where South Korean steel giant Posco is keen to set up a Rs 52,000 crore steel plant.
In 2005, Posco had entered into a pact with Odisha to set up a steel unit, but dropped the plan after facing stiff opposition from the locals for more than a decade.