Ministerial group to decide on steel capacity boost tomorrow

Issues with composite licence and hurdles in clearances to be discussed

An inter-ministerial group (IMG) of the central government would meet on Tuesday to deliberate on a number of issues plaguing the steel industry. These include capacity augmentation by public and private-sector steel players, award of composite licence for mineral blocks and hurdles faced in obtaining forest and environment clearances. The meeting would also take stock of the problems faced by individual steel companies in their operations.

In case of the Steel Authority of India (SAIL), the capacity augmentation of its Gua iron ore mines in Jharkhand, Bolani mines in Odisha and also expansion of the steel unit at Bhilai are expected to come up during discussions. SAIL is confronting issues related to forest clearance in both the iron ore mines.

In the case of Bolani mines, there is anomaly in levy of royalty on iron ore, which is a long-pending issue with the Odisha government.

SAIL is also developing new iron ore mines at Thakurani Block-A in Keonjhar district, for which the award of prospecting licence is pending with the Odisha government.

For India’s biggest iron ore producer NMDC, forest and environment clearance issues have come in the way of its plan to expand Bailadila mines in Chhattisgarh. NMDC is also awaiting the receipt of forest clearance for its three-million-tonne steel plant at Nagarnar in Chhattisgarh.

Among private steel investors, JSW Steel is battling issues such as availability of iron ore and renewal of mining lease to expand steel capacity at its Vijaya Nagar plant in Karnataka.

Essar Steel has flagged concerns on the security of its iron ore slurry pipeline feeding its Visakhapatnam steel plant, demanding a long-term security solution.

Bhushan Steel, which runs a three-million-tonne steel plant at Meramundali in Odisha, has demanded award of composite licence (prospecting licence-cum-mining lease) for iron ore blocks, production of iron ore according to limits approved under environment clearance and water cess levy in Odisha in line with actual usage.

Visa Steel’s suggestions include import duty cut on coking coal from 2.5 per cent to nil; financial package for the steel sector; auction of iron ore mining lease to end-use plants; increase in iron ore production to rated capacity of the mines, etc.