Panel on raw material supply to industries

The Odisha government has constituted a ministerial committee to formulate a policy for offering raw materials to industries in the state on a long-term basis. The formation of the committee follows a long-standing demand by end use industries that have been suffering for want of raw materials.

The committee will be chaired by the state finance minister with industries minister and steel & mines minister as its members.

The committee’s mandate will be to suggest measures for making iron ore, manganese ore, bauxite and chrome ore available to the mineral based industries located in the state. The mineral ores will be made available in a fair and equitable manner through the Odisha Mining Corporation and other mining lessees.

Besides, the committee will suggest modalities for making the ore available on a sustained basis to such industries through appropriate long-term ore linkage arrangements. It will also suggest a framework for making the ore available to local industries through a transparent process.

It may be noted that the state government had inked 95 MoUs (memorandum of understanding) with private players across sectors like steel, aluminium and power. Of the 50 MoUs with steel companies, 30 have gone into either partial or full scale production.

The steel & mines department had received a number of representations from mineral based industries that they are facing shortage of ore required for running their industries. Scarcity of raw materials had impaired production of some of these industries.