Thaindian News

Panaji, Jan 12 (IANS) Goa does not feature in the list of iron deposit intensive areas which have been marked out for future exploration, according to a visionary document prepared by the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM).

The IBM report, titled ‘Vision 2020 (Iron and Steel)’, has pegged six states — Orissa, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh — as the future repositories of low-grade iron ore in India.

While pegging Goa’s iron ore reserves at 927 million tonnes, the report also advocates “evolving suitable mining technology to exploit magnetite ore which are mostly occurring in the environmentally and ecologically sensitive Western Ghat region”.

The document has also identified the Bonai-Keonjhar, Tomka-Daitari and the Umerkote belts in Odisha; all ore deposits in Jharkhand; Bhagalkot, Chitradurga and Tumkur regions of Karnataka; Sindhudurg, Gadchiroli and Gondia districts in Maharashtra and other regions in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh as areas to be prospected for low grade iron ore for the future.

Goa, which recorded the highest export of low grade iron ore in the last fiscal at over 50 million tonnes, is reeling under pressure following a probe by the Justice Shah Commission into illegal mining.

The commission has pointed out several large-scale irregularities in the mining sector in the state. The opposition has estimated the mining scam in Goa at Rs.25,000 crore.

“The present iron ore beneficiation facilities in the country are highly inadequate…To cope with the increasing demand of quality iron ore for future projected growth of steel industry and in order to conserve limited reserves of high grade iron ore lumps in the country, iron ore beneficiation followed by pelletisation is inevitable in the present scenario,” the report states.

Envisaging domestic steel production in India to go up to 180 million tonnes by 2020, the report pegs the corresponding requirement of iron ore by then at 500 million tonnes, which is virtually double the current 220 million tonnes.

“The present installed capacity of steel making in the country is about 78 million tonnes while the actual production reported is 65.5 million tonnes,” the report said, adding that to match up to the envisioned production of steel by 2020, there had to be a “proportionate jump in iron ore production”.