Wednesday, January 4 2006 20:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Tata Steel has nothing to do with the violence at Kalinga Nagar in Orissa's Jajpur district that resulted in 13 deaths, a Tata Group official said today (Jan 4,2006).

"We had nothing at all to do with it. None of our officers were present," J J Irani, Director of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, told reporters here in response to questions.

Armed tribals, who objected to commencement of construction work at the site of the steel plant project of the Tata Steel on Monday, clashed with the police prompting the latter to open fire in which 12 persons died. The tribals also hacked to death a police havildar.

Irani said the issue was handled by the State Government and "We were nowhere in sight". He said the land was acquired by the State Government and the Tatas wanted some land to put up a steel plant.

He said since some people were staying in the land, Tata Steel cannot start work on the project. Irani said Tata Steel is awaiting 'clearing' of the people from the land by the Government as well as firming up iron ore leases to commence work on the plant.

"If the land is given to us in a condition when we can build the plant, we will certainly build the plant," he said.

Irani said Tata Steel's plan is to build the ten million tonne plant at Kalinga Nagar in four phases of 2.5 million tonne capacity each with an investment in the region of Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore.