PANJIM:
With nearly three million tonnes of e-auctioned ore still lying at sites as owners
have not lifting it, Directorate of Mines and Geology (DMG) has asked mining
firms to deposit back the extraction cost of the cargo that has not been lifted,
by July 21.
As per
Supreme Court directives, DMG has to shell out Rs 250 per tonne extraction cost
to the mining companies whose ore has been auctioned. The department has till
date paid over Rs 100 crore to the firms for auction of eight million tonnes of
ore.
“However,
it has been found that not all auctioned material is lifted from various
storage points. Hence, owners of such stacks who have collected extraction cost
in advance for the balance quantity of ore not lifted so far by the dealers are
hereby directed to forthwith deposit such part of extraction cost realized by
them, but cargo of which is not lifted so far, on or before July 21,” director
Prasanna Acharya has said in an order issued on Monday.
Those who
fail to deposit the extraction amount would be liable to pay additional
interest at 24 percent per annum, he said. “Also, those owners who have not
collected the ore extraction cost, are directed to collect the same on or before
July 21,” Acharya added.
Iron ore
transportation is currently at a halt due to the monsoon. The fresh mining
season will commence in October. In the last two years, the government has
auctioned nearly eight million tonnes of ore of the total 15 million tonnes.
The mining industry
has exported 8.8 million tonnes of ore in the 2015-16 seasons. Of the
total exports, 3.4 million tonnes were fresh extracted ore, while the remaining
5.4 million tonnes were marked for e-auction.
