The
ministerial Committee on iron ore supply to the Odisha based industries is
scheduled to meet for the second time on Tuesday. In its last meeting held on
27th of November it had been decided to ask Odisha’s investment
promotion agency IPICOL to assess the annual iron ore requirement of the state
based steel industries, which are going through a crisis time due to
non-availability of raw material.
According to
official sources the total iron ore despatch for the year 2011-12 (by March
2012) in the state 58.53 million tonnes. Out of this 20.79 million tonnes was
used for captive consumption by various industries. On the other hand, iron ore
consumption inside the state was 11.56 million tonnes and consumption outside
the state was 16.20 million tonne and export was 9.98 million tonnes.
According to an
estimate by the All Odisha steel Federation (AOSF) the lobby group representing
state based steel units including the 100+ sponge iron units, 5-6 blast
furnaces and 29 partially producing steel plants (who have signed MoUs with the
state government in the last 7-8 years), the total annual iron ore requirement of
these units is more than 20 million tonnes. So the panel is expected to lay emphasis
on streamline iron ore supply to state based industries.
Edited by: Tapan Moharana
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