The Ministerial committee of the state government, which has been mandated to chalk out plans for providing raw material to mineral based industries in Odisha, will be meeting on Tuesday to formulate the supply policy mechanism.
The panel was supposed to meet on December 14, but it was rescheduled to December 18.
The state government formed the panel in October this year with an aim to find out measures for making iron ore, manganese, bauxite and chrome ore available to the mineral based industries, which do not have captive mines. It has been already decided that the ores will be made available in a fair and equitable manner through the state-run PSU Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) and other mining lessees.
Besides, the committee will suggest modalities for making the ore available on a sustained basis to such industries through appropriate long-term ore linkage arrangements. It will suggest a framework for making the ore available to local industries through a transparent process.
The creation of such a panel became necessary after many metal industries complained to the state government of not getting raw material to run their mills since the miners preferred to export those minerals and due to other hindrances such as huge logjam during processing of mining lease renewal applications.
The committee is chaired by the state finance minister with industries minister and steel & mines minister as its members. The panel will come out with a raw material supply formula by the end of January 2013.
