Thursday, Aug 18,
Two weeks after the Supreme Court made an exemption and allowed NMDC to mine from Bellary district in Karnataka, the turmoil for the domestic industry is far from over.
Sources say, NMDC was allowed to keep two mine leases alive and they were allowed to mine about one million tonne per month and that is what the Supreme Court thought would be enough to keep the domestic production going.
However, it is learnt that NMDC has been able to give out only 0.5 million tonne that is half of what was expected of them and it will take them at least five-six months to ramp up that production to one million tonne.
In the meantime, other companies like JSW Steel and Kalyani Steel have shut shop. Kirloskar Ferrous has shut down one plant and other one is operating at 40% and about 25,000 people have been laid-off so far. Hence, it is an alarming situation for those 8 lakh people in Bellary district, who are dependent on iron ore that comes out of Bellary.
JSW Steel, Adani and Sesa Goa take iron ore from NMDC. However, NMDC is no position to ramp up their production to one million tonne. There were nine other leases that the Environment Ministry had cleared out of which just two leases were given a go ahead by the Supreme Court and approval on the remaining is still awaited.
Source: Money Control
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