Amid shortage of iron ore for the steel industry in southern India, the government today said the situation would stabilise in a month, as the country's top miner NMDC was in the process of ramping up its production in Karnataka's Bellary to 1 million tonne per month.
"I think we should be able to stabilise things very soon... In a month's time things will stabilise for steel the sector," Steel Secretary PK Misra told reporters here on the sidelines of a CII conference.
He added, "They [NMDC] will ramp up their production capacity to 1 million tonne. They are very confident and I think that in a month or so they will be able to ramp it up."
The steel and allied industry in southern states are reeling under severe shortages of iron ore, a vital raw material for production.
The issue has come up, following a July 29 ban of the apex court on mining activities in Karnataka's Bellary due to environmental degradation of the area.
However, this led to a severe shortage of iron ore in the southern India as Bellary accounts for about 80 per cent of Karnataka's total production at about 40 million tonne per annum.
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The industry has been arguing that the partial relief provided by the apex court on August 5, which allowed only state-run NMDC to mine one million tonne of ore per month (or 12 million tonne in a year), would not help as the demand is much more.
According to Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce, iron ore demand of the steel and allied industry in Karnataka alone is 2.9 million tonne per month, while NMDC has been allowed to mine only 1 million tonne per month.
The chamber had also said that the state-run firm has been supplying only in the range of 21,000-22,000 tonne per day against the estimated daily production of 33,500 tonne, to fulfil the criteria of producing 1 million tonne per month, as has been ordered by the apex court.
However, the Steel Secretary said that the NMDC has also started supplying from Chhattisgarh to meet the shortfall, while some industries are buying from Goa to run their plants.
"We are also supplying some ore from the Chhattisgarh area and some of the industries are also buying ore from Goa... In a month's time things will stabilise for Steel," Misra said.