After a lull for several days, Orissa government on Thursday said Posco-India could easily start its work over 2,000 acres so far acquired to set up its proposed mega steel plant near Paradip.

"The state government has so far acquired over 2000 acre of land for Posco steel plant. The company could easily start its work over the acquired land," chief secretary B K Patnaik told reporters.

Stating that the South Korean steel major wanted about 4,000 acre of land, the chief secretary pointed out that 2,000 acres was not a small patch.

"They (Posco-India) had proposed to set up 12 mtpa steel facility in three different modules. Now the acquired land can accomodate the steel plant," he said.

After holding about half of the required land, Patnaik said 2,000 acres was sufficient to start work.

However, the state government was not sitting idle, Patnaik claimed adding efforts were on to acquire land for construction of roads to the proposed plant site and other associated requrement like rehabilitation colony.

Rejecting allegation that slow land acquisition delayed implemenation of the country's biggest FDI (Rs 52,000 crore), Patnaik said the company got final forest clearance from the union government barely some months ago.

The state government acquired over 2,000 acres since May, 2011 after the project got final forest clearance from environment and forest ministry, an official said adding it is not proper to blame the state government for the delay.

Meanwhile, the officials argued that while Tata Steel could build its 6mtpa capacity steel plant over 2200 acres in Kalinga Nagar, why not Posco.