Nagpur | Jan 16, 2015: Manganese Ore India Ltd (MOIL), the Nagpur headquartered public sector major that meets almost half of the country's manganese requirement, is on track to double the production in one of its oldest mines at Mansar. The vertical shaft complex to be inaugurated on Saturday will enable increased output from current 50,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) to 1 lakh tpa. Manganese is critical input in making steel.
Union minister for steel and mines Narendra Singh Tomar will inaugurate the facility on Saturday at Mansar in presence on Union minister for transport Nitin Gadkari who will inaugurate the new administrative building of the mines at Mansar. Informing this here on Wednesday, MOIL chairman-cum-managing director GP Kundergi said the vertical shaft will increase the life of the mines that was started in 1899. It will generate around 300 new jobs at the mine.
MOIL operates ten mines, six in Vidarbha and four in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. With new deposits explored in Nagpur district at Kodegaon and prospecting on in Bhandara district, MOIL is on path to shore up production to 2 million TPA, up from the current 1.2m TPA.
Close on the heels of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announcement that the state would cut open access power surcharge for electricity-intensive mineral-based industries in Vidarbha, MOIL is organizing an interactive session with representatives of industries, miners, geologists and mining engineers for the possibilities of new industries in Vidarbha. The session will be inaugurated by Gadkari on Saturday morning at 10.30am at MOIL auditorium in Nagpur in presence of Tomar.
The two ministers will later proceed to Mansar. Representatives of Vidarbha Industries Association, Vidarbha Economic Development Council, and directorate of mines, Maharashtra government, Geological Survey of India, Indian Bureau of Mines and other related organizations have been invited for the session. In recent year. Mineral-based units have been shifting to Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh to escape "exorbitant" power tariff in Maharashtra and new industries are also not coming up here. The industrial power tariff in the state averages Rs7.50-8.00 while it is hardly Rs4.50 in Chhattisgarh.
To attract more investors, particularly those reluctant to invest in the region because of high power tariff, the state has proposed to reduce the open access surcharge by Rs1.50 per unit for industries in Vidarbha to promote industrial development in the backward region. "We are hopeful of attracting more mineral-based industries in the region through the proposed interaction session and particularly the new power policy of the state," said Kundergi.
(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)