Miners to meet Centre on May 28 over ore duty

The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), an association of miners and mineral processors, will be meeting the Group of Ministers (GoM) on May 28 to express its disappointment over the partial removal of duty on iron ore exports. The Indian Steel Alliance (ISA) is likely to attend the meet on behalf of the steel industry.

The meeting, earlier scheduled for Monday (May 14), has been postponed to May 28.

The meet assumes significance as miners in the country are demanding a complete waiver of duty on all types of iron ore exports and the government is understood to be giving them a patient hearing.

The FIMI will present its case before the GoM, comprising finance minister, commerce minister, mines minister, among others.

A couple of FIMI members from Goa confirmed their availability for the meeting. Moosa Raza, president of the ISA, was not available for confirmation on his association's participation in the meeting.

The government levied a Rs 300 per tonne duty on all iron ore exports in the recent Budget.

But, owing to continued resistance by miners, the duty on fines with iron content below 62 per cent was cut to Rs 50 a tonne. However, export duty on lumps with iron content above 62 per cent remains unchanged.

Miners from Goa, the hub of low-grade iron ore mining, are still unhappy with the government's duty revision, arguing that even the lower export duty would hit their wafer-thin profit margins. The FIMI estimates a 40 per cent decline in exports of low-grade iron ore.

"We are going to appraise the government that the domestic steel producers do not use fines for steelmaking and that they are purely meant for exports. Hence, any duty on fines would have repercussions on the livelihood of millions of people directly or indirectly engaged with iron ore," a Goan iron ore miner said.

The country exported about 90 million tonnes of iron ore, mainly to China, in the previous financial year. About 60 per cent of the total exports comprised fines mainly from Goa.

The exports have been growing significantly since 2000 more than doubling from 41.64 mt in 2001-02 to 90 mt in 2006-07.