The Odisha State Pollution Control Board has served notices on two chromite mines of Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys (IMFA).
The notices had been served on IMFA’s Kaliapani mines in the Sukinda valley on the ground of violation of air and water pollution norms.
The closure direction by the pollution watchdog follows a notice issued earlier.
In the course of its routine inspections, the pollution board raised some objection while chromite mines of IMFA at Sukinda.
The pollution board has revoked the consent to operate granted to both mines till the company takes adequate measures to comply with the norms.
Overall, the pollution board has faulted IMFA for failure to contain the problems of pollution, comply with the consent conditions and directives issued from time to time.
IMFA is India’s largest fully integrated producer of ferro chrome with 187 MVA installed furnace capacity backed up by 258 MW captive power generation.
The two mines produced over 0.43 million tonnes (MnT) of chrome ore in 2016 out of the total chrome ore production of almost 4 MnT in India, according to data maintained by SteelMint.
IMFA dispatched 27,420 MT and 13,996 MT in February and March respectively from its mines to its ferro chrome plant.
According to sources the Company has stockpiles of Chrome Ore that will last through April. But, it could be a huge setback, in case the necessary clearance from the State Pollution Control Board can’t be obtained in time. It has been observed that companies increase their mining output before the rainy season as production from the mines vastly reduce due to the rains.
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