Report on ore linkage by July 15

The inter-ministerial committee of the state government formed to formulate a long-term ore linkage policy for local industries is all set to submit its report by July 15.

“Our report on ore linkage is almost in the final stage. The committee will have its last round of meeting on July 11 and then we will submit our report by July 15. We already had wide consultations with all stakeholders with respect to formulating the policy. Our objective is to ensure that industries operating in the state without raw material linkages get timely and adequate ore supplies at suitable prices,” said committee chairman and state finance minister Prasanna Acharya.

The committee which was originally supposed to submit its report by January 30, has already jumped three extended timelines.

The committee’s mandate is to suggest measures for making iron ore, manganese ore, bauxite and chrome ore available to to the mineral-based industries located in the state.

The mineral ores will be made available in a fair and equitable manner through the state mine PSU Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) 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 memorandum of understanding (MoUs) with private players across sectors like steel, aluminium and power.

Of the 50 MoUs that the government has inked with steel companies, 30 have gone into either partial or full scale production.The steel and mines department had received a number of representations from mineral based industries that they are facing shortage of ore required for running their industries.