The Indian central government urged east Indian state Orissa to speed up land allotment to South Korean company POSCO's steel plant project, a senior official said here Friday.

The Indian Government has also agreed to consider granting POSCO the prospecting license for Khandadhar iron ore mines in Orissa, said the official unwilling to give his name.

The South Korean company proposed to build a steel plant with an annual capacity of 12 million tons in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district, which is the biggest foreign direct investment in India.

But the project has been delayed for about six months as the state government failed to provide the land.

Some local political parties and residents were opposing the government's move to acquire the land and displace hundreds of local residents.

Orissa's Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi recently to discuss the situation of this project.

An official with POSCO India was quoted by local media in late March as saying that the company was pursuing project with utmost seriousness and still hopeful of getting the land in a few months.

Source: Xinhua