Lifting of Goa mining ban to bring life back to industry: FIMI

New Delhi: The lifting of an 18-month ban on mining in Goa will help revive economic activity in the coastal state, the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) said. "It is a very good thing to happen. This will bring the mining industry back in Goa.

It will create employment and boost the economic activity," FIMI Secretary General R K Sharma said after a judgement today by the Supreme Court. The apex court today partially lifted the mining ban in the state and allowed 20 million tonnes of iron ore to be extracted annually. Production in Goa before the ban was about 45 million tonnes a year.

The court had banned operations in all 90 mines in Goa from September 2012 after the Justice M B Shah Commission pointed out illegalities in the industry. "The mining industry in Goa will breathe into life again. Port activities in the state, which were also suffering due to the ban, would again come back into life," Sharma said. The ban on production of iron ore in Goa and Karnataka had hit India's exports of the key steel-making ingredient.

The country, the third-largest iron ore exporter in the world in the not so distant past, exported 12.57 million tonnes during the April-February period of 2013-14 against 17.35 million tonnes in the same period of the previous financial year. India used to export more than 100 million tonnes of the ore a year, mainly to China, before the ban was imposed.