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Odisha government has decided to request the Centre to allow four mining companies to raise mineral output, totaling 16 million tonne, as output restrictions on large iron ore miners has resulted in Rs 900 crore deficit in mining revenue collection compared to the target upto October.
“As there has been a shortfall of around Rs 900 crore by October-end from the collection target of mining revenue, we have decided to request the Centre to approve mining output enhancement applications of some mines to improve revenue collections,” said Deepak Kumar Mohanty, director of mines with the state government after attending a review meeting conducted by the mines secretary today.
The state has generated mining revenue of Rs 2,343 crore between April and October, against Rs 3,077 crore in the corresponding period of last year. The target for the current year from the sector is fixed at Rs 6,346 crore.
According to latest figures, total dispatch of iron ore upto September has been 22.32 mt, against 28.47 mt achieved in the same period last year. In the meeting today, the mines secretary asked all the mining circle heads to encourage lease holders to meet the dispatch target of current financial year set by the steel and mines department.
The state government said, even after allowing dispatch of 15 million tonne stock of previous fiscal, the total dispatch of all mines would be around 43 million tonne, less than the 57 million tonne dispatch capping limit fixed by it.
“Since total output will be less than the capping limit of 57 mt, we decided to request the Centre to approve mining output enhance applications of these mines so that we can at least meet the capping limit in the current fiscal,” said Mohanty. The mines belong to Sirajuddin, Rungta and S N Mohanty groups. The mining plan enhancement applications of these mines were approved in 2013-14, but later withdrawn at the start of 2014-15, as a study was being conducted to estimate the carrying capacity needs of Odisha. As the study has been already completed, the state government said, the Centre must facilitate raising the mineral output in the firm of Environment Clearance (EC) for the higher capacity as soon as possible.
At present, 36 iron ore mines are operating under capacity, out of which 29 belong to merchant miners and the rest to steel plants. The production limit, as per the approved EC in respect of these 29 mines, is 42.36 mt.
