CEC tells Karnataka to expedite renewal of mining leases

Sesa Sterlite is in advanced stages of getting renewal for its lease in Chitradurga

 

The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court on Saturday directed the Karnataka government to expedite the process of renewal of iron ore mining leases, which had expired. It asked the state government to accord top priority and complete the process of renewals.

This means that decks will soon be cleared for issue of final clearance to Sesa Sterlite, the largest private sector mining company in Karnataka, to restart its mining operations at its mines in Chitradurga district. Presently, Sesa Sterlite is awaiting the final approval from the monitoring committee of the Supreme Court to restart its mining operations. It has already received temporary work permit from the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to restart mines.

The CEC, which held a meeting with all the stakeholders of iron ore mining such as representatives of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), Karnataka Iron and Steel Manufacturers Association (KISMA), steel mills, miners, director of mines and geology, monitoring committee and other state government officials, also decided to delink Category A, B and C mining leases. This means regardless of any mining company having multiple leases in different categories, the state government will address the pending issues of those mines on an individual lease basis, mining industry sources said.

Other major issues such as implementation of reclamation and rehabilitation (R&R) Plans, e-auctions and opening of remaining mines were not discussed in today’s meeting.

While discussing the demand of KISMA, which had argued for issuing new mining leases, the CEC members said the Supreme Court had not put any restrictions on issuing new mining leases and the state government was free to take a decision on it.

Sesa Sterlite has already got approval for its R&R Plan and it has been allowed to extract 2.3 million tonnes of iron ore per annum.

The CEC also discussed the issue of lease renewals of many other mining companies that include Mineral Enterprises Limited (MEL). “In the case of MEL, we have asked for permission to amalgamate two of our mining leases, which are in the revenue land in Chitradurga district. We are waiting for the deputy commissioner to give the permission as mines in revenue land come under the administrative purview of the deputy commissioner. Our other mine is in the forest area, which is awaiting renewal,” Basant Poddar, managing director, MEL said.

At the meeting, CEC also told the state government to submit the details of all individual mines in the form of an affidavit to the Supreme Court.

Currently, steel makers in and around Karnataka are facing acute shortage of iron ore to run their plants. All the steel plants are operating between 40 per cent and 80 per cent in the state. As against the requirement of 35 million tonnes for the steel and sponge iron plants in the state, the current availability has remained around 14 million tonnes, including around 8.5 million tonnes from state-owned National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC).

Presently, only 15 mines (12 from category A and 3 from category B) are operating in the state of Karnataka with the production capacity of 5.5 million tonnes. The monitoring committee appointed by the Supreme Court to supervise the functioning of iron ore mines in Karnataka, has till now cleared 20 mines.

Out of 108 mines, only 94 mines are eligible to restart their operations as the remaining 14 mines have not given their details for preparing the R&R plans. Of these 94 mines, the R&R plans for 22 mines are not approved and the remaining 72 mines are left in the business, which together can produce 28.83 million tonnes. The R&R plans of 55 mines have been approved till now.