From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Mar 18: The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), Southern Region has sought the state government’s intervention over large quantities of iron ore being brought into the state of Karnataka despite there are huge stocks of iron ore in the state.
FIMI has raised serious concerns about the impact on employment, revenue and infrastructure development in the state because of rising imports of iron-ore while there are abundant supply and stocks of mineral in Karnataka.
The concurrent restrictions on the trade of iron ore in Karnataka is suppressing the growth of the sector and have significant deleterious effects on the industry and also the state exchequer.
Around 4 lac metric tonnes of iron ore had been imported in October 2020 from the eastern part of India through South-East Railway, which is almost 1620 km from Karnataka.
FIMI had highlighted the issue and raised the concern with the principal secretary to mines and SSI in November last year.
But in the past four months since FIMI raised its concern to the state government almost 15 lac metric tonnes of iron ore has been imported to Karnataka. Transportation of iron ore across 1620 km is completely carbon negative and environmentally unfriendly, it said.
The restrictions on the trade of iron ore in Karnataka is suppressing the growth of the sector and have significant deleterious effects on the industry and also the public exchequer.
The rest of India is exporting iron ore as per the EXIM policy of the Government of India thereby ensuring fair revenue to the state exchequer including foreign exchange as well as overall growth of the nation by using the railways, port facilities etc.
As per the data available, the total export in the year 2019 from other parts of India shows export of 10.34 million metric tonnes of fines and 1.16 million metric tonnes of lumps.
These restrictions are also distorting the market as the buyer has the freedom of trade, the right to purchase iron ore from either the e-auction or from other states or even to import from overseas. This has created a skewed market, disadvantageous to sellers as they can only sell to domestic end-users.
Earlier, FIMI southern region had written to the Ministry of Mines appealing to take appropriate facts and urgently submit necessary specifics before the Supreme Court, in order to rectify the gross imbalance that has arisen due to the prohibition on exports and seek urgent rectification of the situation by permitting the export of iron-ore from Karnataka.