Odisha lets SAIL, Tata reopen 8 closed mines
The move is expected to greatly reduce the losses in revenue from mineral royalty
Bhubaneswar: In a significant development, the Odisha government has allowed operations in eight iron ore mines out of the 26 mines which were closed down following a Supreme Court order last month.
The move is expected to greatly reduce the losses in revenue from mineral royalty.
Odisha, the top iron ore producing state in India, expects the ore output in 2014-15 to be around last year’s level. The state received nearly Rs 4,500 crore as mining royalty in 2013-14, collected from extraction of iron ore, bauxite and coal.
The government’s decision to allow operation in eight mines will benefit four iron ore mines of Tata Steel — Joda East, Joda West, Katamati, Bamebari, two mines of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) — Bolani and Barsuan-Kalta and one iron ore mine of Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) at Kurmitar.
These eight mines have an annual combined capacity of 20 million metric tonnes.
“The government has issued an order for the full-fledged operation of the mines. However, the lessees will have to submit necessary clearances before the department within three months for the renewal of leases,” said state director mines Deepak Mohanty.
The state government’s order will benefit the state-run steel maker SAIL and Tata Steel, who were faced with the threat of having to cut down heavily on production in their steel plants at Rourkela, Durgapur and Jamshedpur respectively.
However, the Odisha government said the temporary closure of the mines would not affect the revenue in the form of mining royalty.
“The brief halt in operations will not have much of an impact on the yearly output and we hope the revenue generation will be steady,” said Mr Mohanty.