Location of NMDC HQ a poll plank in Bastar

The location of the headquarters of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) in Hyderabad has become a major poll plank in the Naxalite-hit Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.

“We have made it a major poll issue as the NMDC’s headquarters in Hyderabad is totally unjustifiable when the company has major operations in the state of Chhattisgarh,” Communist Party of India (CPI) state secretary Chitranjan Bakshi said.

Even the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has raised the issue. “The matter is related to the people of Bastar, who have been demanding the shifting of NMDC headquarters from Hyderabad to Bastar,” senior BJP leader Subhash Rao said. The party has been raising the issue for long time, he added.

According to Bakshi, 90 per cent of NMDC’s operation including production and despatch is carried out from the Dantewada district of the state. The country's largest producer and exporter of iron ore has two of its three fully mechanised mines located in the Bailadilla hills of Naxalite-hit Dantewada district.

Since the NMDC headquarters is located in Hyderabad, the company is paying the required taxes to the Andhra Pradesh Government.