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Ambarish Mukherjee

New Delhi , Dec. 22

THE Ministry of Steel has taken up the issue of availability of iron ore to steel producing companies and the consultative committee attached to the Ministry is to discuss the matter in its meeting on Tuesday.

According to official sources, the situation of the individual iron ore mines under the public sector undertakings (PSUs) is likely to be taken up for discussion and their future in terms of availability of reserves and balance life will be considered.

Based on the existing situation, it will have to be decided how many new mines need to be developed by the PSUs under the Ministry's control.

Sources said that there is a proposal that the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) should develop two large iron ore mines to produce 10-11 million tonnes of ore per annum each at Chiria in Jharkhand and Rowghat in Chhattisgarh to meet the total internal requirement.It has been estimated that SAIL will take about seven years to develop these new mines.

It may be mentioned that despite sufficient availability of iron ore in the country, steel-producing companies, both in the private and public sectors, have been complaining of poor availability of the raw material. A substantial amount of ore is exported under long-term contracts, which has led the domestic producers to lobby with the Government to export lesser amounts.

The Ministry is now looking at the whole issue in a long-term perspective to ensure that there is no problem of ore availability for the domestic steel producers, sources said.

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