Orissa to serve ultimatum to ports for information sharing on ore exports

The Orissa government will soon serve an ultimatum to the authorities of five ports- Haldia, Vishakhapatnam, Kakinada, Gangavaram and Dhamara for sharing of information on export of minerals generating from the state through their ports.

The state will reiterate its stand on information sharing in case of ore exports with the authorities of these five ports at a high-level meeting to be held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary B K Patnaik on October 25.

"We have invited the authorities of the five ports for a meeting scheduled for October 25. Earlier, we had asked these ports to share information on ore exports”, said Patnaik.

The state steel & mines secretary Manoj Ahuja had recently written to these port authorities, calling for submission of information related to ore exports to the state director of mines at least once every fort night for verification of the data with the transit permits issued by the mining offices of the state.

Ahuja had pointed out that the decision to share information on ore exports by the ports was taken by the Government of India in 2010 to streamline the movement of consignments by rail and road.

It may be noted that the Union Ministry of Shipping in 2010 had asked all major port trusts of India to adopt measures in line with the measures adopted by Paradip Port Trust (PPT) to check illegal export of iron ore.