Amid shortage of iron ore supply to major steel plants in eastern India, the Indian Railways and the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) have resolved to optimise industrial output by enhancing supply, official sources said today. Railways and NMDC officials held a meeting here yesterday to chalk out a strategy on how to overcome the crisis of raw material supply to steel plants.
East Coast Railway General Manager A K Goyal exhorted NMDC to enhance the production of iron ore. At he same time, he committed his organisation’s preparedness regarding supply of rakes to meet NMDC’s production target of 25 million tonne.
Out of this 25 MT, railway despatches would account for more than 10 MT, the sources said. The meeting, the first of its kind, took stock of their functioning in the first part of the current financial year and analysed monthwise performance.
NMDC’S CMD Rana Som appreciated the Railways’ role in helping NMDC in construction activities.
“Based on this, loading of iron ore in the remaining seven months of this financial year was planned in the meeting in which NMDC assured us to make the material available to the extent of 15 rakes daily,” a railway spokesman said.
Goyal said he was in favour of regular meetings with leading players of steel, coal, power and iron ore sectors.
