New ground realities in iron ore

An increase in court-mandated production caps offers miners some marginal relief; export duty cuts are their next demand

For its acts of omission and commission over the years, India’s iron ore industry invited the opprobrium of the authorities. This finally resulted in the Supreme Court putting a ban on production of the steel-making ingredient in Karnataka and Goa in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Subsequently, by way of offering miners some relief, the court replaced the ban with ceiling on ore production for Karnataka at 30 million tonnes (mt) and Goa 20 at mt. In the past decade, iron ore miners at their peak extracted up to 218 mt, which met the entire requirement of local steelmakers and allowed