Kudremukh pays dividend to govt

 With this, the company continues to maintain a profit-making dividend paying streak since the last years.

 KIOCL recorded a turnover of Rs 727 crore in 2002-2003 and the total dividend payout was rs 22.21 crore excluding payment of dividend tax of Rs 2.85 crore.

 It produced 5.532 million tonne of concentrate and 3.450 mt of pellets during the year 2002-2003. The exports were of the order of 2.302 mt of concentrate and 3.540 mt of pellets.

 It may be noted that during the first half of the current financial year, the company's plant produced 2.177 mt of concentrate and 1.898 mt of pellets. Exports were of the order of 0.384 mt of concentrate and 1.889 mt of pellets. Sales turnover of for the same period is Rs 372 crore.

 Despite the progress made by the company, the problem of finalising alternatives for the feed material for its pellet plant in Mangalore remains to be addressed. The Supreme Court, in October 2002, ordered closure of this Rs 721 crore company by December 2005, providing it with a three-year new lease of life.

 Kudremukh's 30-year lease agreement signed with the state government in 1969, expired in 1999, but has been extended every year with the concurrence of the Union government, even as the environmental lobbies dragged both parties to the Supreme Court for the closure of these mines.