Date | June 22, 2017:

Heavily armed Naxalites stormed into an under-construction mine of National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) in Chhattisgarh’s restive Dantewada district on Thursday morning.

The state-run miner has been allotted two mechanised mines in Deposit-13 which is spread over 413.74 hectares of land in the Bailadilla hills. NMDC would be jointly developing the mine with Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC). The green-field iron ore mines would have a capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).

Two of NMDC’s three mechanised mines are located in Dantewada. The two projects constitute a major proportion of NMDC’s total output. The company had produced 35.62 million tonnes of iron ore in 2016-17.

NMDC is has a major expansion plan called Vison 2025. According to the vision document, the miner aims to achieve 75 million tonnes of iron ore mining capacity by 2018-19 and 100 million tonnes by 2021-22.

The work that was being carried out in Deposit-13 was a part of the plan.

According to reports from Bailadilla, 350 heavily armed Naxalites attacked the mine.

The rebels assembled 40 workers in the mine and warned them not to turn out for work again. They also threatened the NMDC officials not to return or attempt to develop the mine. The work in the mine was immediately halted.

“On Thursday morning at around 11 am, Naxalites stormed into the mine area and bashed up the two officials of NMDC engaged in the survey work,” Dantewada Superintendent of Police Kamal Lochan Kashyap said.

The rebels also thrashed a driver and set two vehicles of survey officials on fire, he added. They sustained serious internal injuries and were taken to Raipur for better medical care. The injured have been identified as NMDC Deputy Manager Riktim, Senior Manager P C Sahu and driver Sudhakar.

(Source: http://www.business-standard.com/)