Goan government has requested Union Mines & Ministry to approach the Apex Court for relaxation of iron ore production cap in the state.
Mr. Prasanna Acharya, Director (Goa DMG) in talk with SteelMint shared that “We have requested the Union Mines & Ministry to approach the Supreme Court to relax the iron ore production cap which was fixed at 20 MnT pa. The Union Secretary of Mines has suggested preparing an infrastructure plan with the utilisation of DMF funds, along with production plan before going to the Supreme Court. We will be going forward with the suggestions given to us.”
Supreme Court after hearing petitions on illegal mining activities in the state of Goa, imposed ban on mining activities in Oct’12. After a long gap of two years the state government revoked the mining ban on Apr’14 and imposed a production cap which was fixed at 20 MnT pa.
This adversely impacted the state’s iron ore production as well as the low grade exports. Goa, which used to remain India’s third largest iron ore producing state witnessed no iron ore production in FY14 & FY15.
However things turned optimistic in last fiscal (i.e. FY16). With resumption of mining operations in the state, iron ore production in Goa is expected to touch 5 MnT in FY16. Vedanta produced 2.2 MnT iron ore from Goa in FY16.
Also, low grade iron ore export from Goa jumped six times in FY16 and were recorded at 3.86 MnT against 0.61 MnT in FY15.
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