SC asks panel to look into steel sector's grievances

The Karnataka govt had earlier told the court, in 2013-14, only 18.118 mt of iron ore would be produced and the following year 22.18 mt. That would leave a shortage of 7.5 mt against a permissible 30

The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday asked the Central Empowered Committee on Karnataka mines, set up by the court, to respond to the grievance of industries that the iron ore offered to be released would not adequately meet the shortage faced by them.

The Karnataka government and the Union steel ministry have filed applications before the court, proposing to alleviate the shortage of iron and manganese ores. However, the association of iron and steel industries on Monday told the court that though the government was proposing to release 30 million tonnes (mt), they would get only 14 mt after deductions and that would not give them a great relief.

The bench, presided by Justice A K Patnaik, asked the committee to respond to the grievances put forward by the industries.

The counsel for the industries said even in two years, the target of 30 mt would not be reached.

On the other hand, the counsel assisting the court submitted the shortage was partly due to the government not granting necessary clearances to the miners.

Faced with differing computations presented by the empowered committee, the industries and the central and state governments, the judges asked the parties to tell them clearly where the “bottlenecks” lay and they would remove these. However, they asserted the quantities of ores for release would not be increased at this stage.

In a small relief to the industries, the court directed the monitoring committee to release 10 per cent of the 20 per cent ore already mined from the A-category mines (which are comparatively less harmful to the environment) and the rest of 10 per cent of the sale proceeds shall be given to the ‘special purpose vehicle’ set up to preserve damaged forests and environment. The same order was passed in the case of sub-grade manganese. Though there was a proposal to release some quantity for captive consumption by the industries, there was objection from certain quarters, following which the court adjourned the hearing on that issue till next week.

The state government had earlier told the court, in 2013-14 only 18.118 mt would be produced and the following year, 22.18 mt. This will leave a shortage of 7.5 mt against the permissible level of 30 mt. Therefore, the state wanted production capacity be increased temporarily for the two years, without affecting the ceiling of 30 mt. The temporary permission to produce more could be balanced by reducing the production capacity for the remaining lease period.

However, there was no order on the government application, which was broadly supported by the Union steel ministry.