NEW DELHI | Jan 07, 2015: The two miners mentioned in the proposal extended by the state government to the central government are, Rungta and also Serajuddin. Rungta owns two mines, and Serajuddin owns one mine. Rungta mine, now has the approval of environment clearance, which allows the miner to extract 6 million tonnes additional iron ore every year. The earlier clearance only allowed the mine to extract 3.5 million tonnes of iron ore. At the same time, the Serajuddin mine will be allowed to extract 15.15 million tonnes of iron ore, instead of 4.5 million tonnes of iron ore according to the previous approval.
The approval given by the Central government to increase the mineral extraction, is anticipated to bring a double growth in the monthly production of iron ore in the state, which implies that, the government expects the output to increase to 12 million tonnes of iron ore per month. The officials in the government are still not aware whether the state can achieve such a huge target.
One of the senior officials in the charge of the mineral production process, stated that, in the month of December, the target set by the government was 6.9 million tonnes, but at the end the actual; production of iron ore was noted to be 2.9 million tonnes. He also added that, the government is not sure that, if it can achieve the target in the current financial year.
Last year, in the month of May, the iron ore production in the state of Odisha was badly affected, when the Supreme Court, released the order to shut down 26 mines, which were accused of producing iron ore without valid mining leases. Even so the state government, eased up the restrictions and permitted the operation of 8 mines under special provisions, and also eased the restriction made by the Supreme Court to sell out old stocks. But when the total output; which includes the output from captive as well as the non captive mines, was calculated the value estimated around 43 million tonnes, which is much lower than 58 million tonne target set by the government.
According to the traders and also the experts in the field, even though the new upgraded EC, permits an additional 16 million tonnes to the existing 42.36 million tonnes, in favor of the non captive mines, the target is hard to be achieved.
A mining consultant based in city, stated that, even if the miners have received the EC, it will take a minimum of three weeks in order to enhance the output, after completing all the required formalities, and also in arranging the machines and workers which would be required to handle the increase in production. There might be a slight increase of 1.5 million tonnes per month after the release of approved EC. The application regarding the mining output enhancement was sent by the state to the central, in the month of November last year, after the state government decided to raise the output in order to make up for the loss that has been arosed due to the or5der given by the Supreme Court, in the month of May. The application given by the other miners for the increase in output is still pending with Union Environment and Forest Ministry.
(Source: http://www.metal.com/)