Steel company ArcelorMittal is close to pulling out of a $20 billion plan to build two steel plants in India due to difficulties buying land, its chairman and main owner, Lakshmi Mittal, told ‘The Financial Times’.

Delays in persuading farmers and others to sell land for the development in the states of Jharkand and Orissa were holding up the project, Mittal said in an interview with the FT.