HC asks Goa govt for rule changes on iron ore transport

Meanwhile, Goa CM in talks with truck owners to break deadlock on freight charges for evacuation of ore

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Following a petition filed by truckers’ associations, the Goa bench of the high court here has asked the state government to frame new rules for transportation of iron ore, whereby truckers’ working hours could be raised.

“The state government has also been asked to allow transport associations to run the trucks on Sunday as well as on holidays, as part of its new rule book,” a Vedanta official close to the development told Business Standard.

Truck owners in Goa have gone on strike, bringing iron ore transportation to a standstill for Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Ltd, the only company which has resumed mining in the state after the Supreme Court lifted ban on iron ore mining early this year.

Currently, trucks carrying iron ore ply only for nine hours starting from 8 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm and do not work on holidays and Sundays. Of its total allocation of 5.5 million tonnes, Vedanta has mined around 500,000 tonnes of ore since August from its operational mines.

Meanwhile, the Goa government led by chief minister L Parsekar has initiated talks with truck owners’ association to break the deadlock on the freight charges for evacuation of iron ore, which has crippled the transportation from mines to the port.

Considering the steep fall in ore prices, Vedanta has offered only Rs 8 per tonne per km to truck owners, a rate much lower than that prevailed before the mining ban.

While some truck owners are ready to accept the rate, others are demanding up to Rs 17 per tonne per km and have even resorted to violence to prevent transportation.

“The state government is also in talks with mine owners and relevant authorities to resume operations at all other mines in the state from January 1 so that more trucks get employed,” said the Vedanta official cited above.

While the introduction of new rules could bring in higher earnings for truckers, it also raises concerns whether protests from locals could erupt again just as it did in the pre-mining ban period.

Locals in the mining area of Goa supported by environmentalists had earlier raised protests against iron ore transportation in an unruly way.

“With ore transportation now being RFID (radio frequency identification) based, iron ore transportation happens in a much more controlled way and so we should not see any protests from the locals,” said the Vedanta official.

RFID-based systems track the trucks and iron ore they carry, update transactions, save this information into the RFID server and send it to the miner. This system enables automation and data updating in near real-time.