Over a decade after Goa’s mining sector was closed, the state is finally looking to once again earn sizable revenue from the industry, with the ball set rolling to export 45 million tonne of iron ore per annum.
Of the 45 million tonne, 20 million tonne will come from freshly extracted iron ore, as permitted by a 2014 Supreme Court order.
The remaining 25 million tonne will come from the handling of the 700 million tonne of low-grade iron ore dumps lying inside and outside mining lease areas across the state, as facilitated by the recent dump handling policy.
An officer said that with the SC order allowing the state to export freshly extracted ore, albeit with a cap of 20 million tonne per annum, expectations were rife for the industry’s restart. The state even started the move in this direction with the auctioning of iron ore mineral blocks (nine have been auctioned so far).
However, even a year later, there is no clarity on the exact quantity of freshly extracted ore that will be exported.
Also, to address the issue of the capping, “it became necessary to export low-grade iron ore to increase the revenue for the state,” said the officer.
The state government has set a target of 25 million tonne for the export of low-grade iron ore, even as it looks to seek permission to increase the capping set by the SC from 20 million tonne to 30 million tonne.
The officer said that, in 2015, the expert committee constituted by the Supreme Court had submitted a macro-EIA study related to the ceiling on the annual excavation of iron ore in Goa. In it, the committee had recommended a cap of 30 million tonne.
“We will approach the Supreme Court to seek permission to increase the capping limit to 30 million tonne based on the expert committee report if required,” the officer said.
Despite the decision to seek an increase in the capping limit for the export of freshly extracted ore, “the state government has itself set an overall limit of 45 million tonne on iron ore export”, as it expects this quantity to put stress on existing infrastructure.
“Even the state government has set a limit on the export figure, and as such, it will be difficult to touch a figure of 55 million tonne,” said the officer.
Jointly, exports of freshly extracted ore and low-grade iron ore from dumps are expected to breathe new life into the sector that came to a standstill for the first time in September 2012 following the tabling of the Shah Commission report in the Parliament.
Mining activities had resumed in 2015 but were halted in March 2018 for the second time after the Supreme Court quashed the second renewal of 88 mining leases.