TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Supreme Court-appointed Monitoring Committee has pushed forward the view that Goan miners should now focus on domestic market for supply of ore, as its sole international market – China has been monopolized by countries such as Brazil and Australia, which are supplying better quality of ore compared to Goa. Dr U V Singh, member of the monitoring committee also expressed his satisfaction ‘so far’ over the State government’s process of e-auctioning of the iron ore.
“It’s always better to have internal (domestic) consumption than to export. Now with China getting better quality ore from Brazil and Australia, Goa has definitely lost its market. Further, China itself has reduced its steel production by nearly 50 per cent,” Dr Singh said.
Singh, who was on Goa visit to check compliance on e-auction process, pointed out that the slowdown in Chinese economy, coupled with the reduction in steel production is proving detrimental for ore exports, especially for Goa, for whom China was the sole market for low grade ore.
China’s annual steel production during the boom period of 2010-11 was around 1,400-1,500 million tons, which has now come down to almost half, he added. In 2009-10, Goa exported 45 million tons of ore to China, which jumped to as high as 54 million tons in 2010-11.
Singh said that the percentage of Goan ore which is consumed domestically is very marginal, which forces the government to depend on exports. “Very little ore is consumed in the domestic market. I know that there is only one buyer in Karnataka that takes the ore, but for that too, there are constraints of transporting the ore. Because of this the buyer is purchasing the ore from Karnataka itself,” he added.
Singh said that the process of e-auctioning of the ore carried out as per Supreme Court directives was quite satisfactory so far, adding that the government had e-auctioned over 4 million tons of ore of the total 15 million tons stacked at jetties, ports and mining sites. Government has already paid Rs 4 crore to MPT as storage charges from the e-auction sale value. But he admitted that the process is slow due to low international ore prices and the four-month long rainy season, which halted transportation and export of ore. Singh said that the compliance report on the e-auction would be submitted to the Apex Court by October 21.
Meanwhile, the SC-appointed six member expert committee would be arriving in Goa on October 12 to prepare a report on how the iron ore dumps should be dealt with. The committee has to submit its report on or before October 21.
The Apex Court in its judgement passed on April 21, had directed the Expert Committee to submit its report on how the mining dumps in the State of Goa should be dealt with within six months-October 21. The committee is been given 12 months time to decide on the cap to be put on the annual excavation of iron ore in the State.
As per government record, State has around 750 million tons of dumps lying. Government in its Mineral Policy 2013 had proposed export of 25 million ton dumps annually claiming that dumps result into environmental degradation.
The committee members include ecologist Dr C R Babu, geologist Dr S C Dhiman, mineralogist Prof B K Mishra, Forest Officer S Parmeshwarappa and the Goa secretary Parimal Rai.
