After Railways, five ports-Paradeep, Haldia, Dhamara, Gangavaram and Kakinada handling exports of iron ore raised in Odisha have agreed to share export related information electronically with the state government.
“The process of integration of online systems of these five ports with the Integrated Mines & Minerals Management System (i3MS) is expected to be completed within a month,” said an official of steel & mines department.
Except Paradip Port, none of the other ports were sharing information on ore exports. Nearly 25 million tonnes of iron ore were shipped from Odisha in 2010-11 as against the pan-India export figure of 97 million tonnes.
Peeved over the irregularity in submission of information on ore exports by some of the ports, the Odisha government had sought the intervention of the Centre to ensure that the details of ores received at different ports are supplied to the state director of mines.
The state government had also announced a freeze on export of iron ore fines through the Gangavaram port as the port authorities did not share information on exports.
It may be noted that the steel & mines department had urged the authorities of five ports to submit information related to ore exports from these ports to the state director of mines at least once in every fort night for verification of the data with the transit permits issued by the mining offices of the state.
The decision to share information on ore exports by the ports was taken by the Government of India in 2010 to streamline the movement of consignments by rail and road.
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The Union Ministry of Shipping in 2010 had asked all major port trusts of India to adopt measures in line with the measures adopted by Paradip Port Trust (PPT) to check illegal export of iron ore.
Under the guidelines of the ministry, the ports must check that a plot holder or an allottee of iron ore is only authorized to move iron ore to the plot by road and rail and the railway authorities are informed accordingly.
According to these guidelines, unauthorized transportation or shifting of iron ore inside the port is prohibited and in case of violation the allotment has to be cancelled. Iron ore received by rail in respect of a particular exporter is verified as per Railway Receipt (RR) and the endorsement of RR for delivery of cargo is not allowed and the cargo is unloaded only on verification of RR.
Similarly, the ore coming by road is verified with the transit pass (TP) and weighment challans and photo copies of the challans and the TPs are to be preserved by the port for subsequent correlation with the copies of royalty paid transit pass issued by the state mining offices.