JSW Steel, which is running a 6 million tonne steel plant in Karantaka's Vijaynagar, today approached the Supreme Court seeking to direct the state to allot it a suitable captive mine which it was promised at the time of signing the agreement a decade ago.
A bench comprising justices HS Bedi and Deepak Verma issued notice to the state and sought reply from it.
JSW Steel, which is the country's largest private steel maker by domestic capacity, council Mukul Rohatgi said despite an agreement with Karnataka, it did not allot the promised iron ore mines in Bellary district. He also submitted the state promised JSW Steel captive iron ore mines about 110mt.
"Now we have already invested around Rs 5,000 crore in the plant but not getting iron ore linkage despite a promise by the state 10 years before," he said, adding the company was forced to source ore from third parties.
He further pointed out that according to the agreement, the state was to allot mines in the Kumareaswamy range, which are currently held by the state-run NMDC.
As NMDC has refused to surrender the lease, the state decided to allot some other blocks to JSW. In some of them it was to jointly operate with Mysore Minerals. However, despite several requests it was not alloted exclusive captive mining area and as a result the company is buying is from open market.