By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/JODA/KOIRA: High premium mining auction continued to haunt big players in Odisha’s mineral rich Joda-Koira mining circles of State Keonjhar and Sundargarh. Sajjan Jindal owned JSW Steel , which has 4 big size iron ore blocks, is facing tough time along with another big player Laxmi Mittal’s Arcellor-Mittal.JSW Steel and Arcellor- Mittal were accused of violation of MCR, MMDR Act causing heavy loss of royalty to the State.
Sources said Odisha Director of Mines Debidutta Bishwal in his letter dated 23.09, 2020 has instructed Joint Director of Mines of both Joda and Koira to issue demand notice to both lessees for payment of differential royalty and premium of stacks which is found to have more Fe content. In February 2020, AMIPL was selected preferred bidder for Thakurani iron ore mine license following an auction process conducted by the Odisha government, in which AMIPL agreed to pay a 107.55 per cent premium per tonne, as well as other royalty and duties, ensuring strong revenue contribution to the state.The block has an annual production capacity of 5.5 MT, which can be scaled up to 8 million tonne and its mineral reserves are expected to increase once detailed exploration is complete.
The officials of Directorate of Mines recently conducted spot visits of Jajang, Nuagaon, Ganua and Narayanposhi iron ore mines of JSW and Thakurani iron ore mines of Arcelor Mittal India Ltd. As per the Director, Mines letter No 6605/ 23-9-20.
Out of 1,901 million tones reserves of iron ore, 1,131million tonnes (59.49%) of ore was acquired by JSW and 179million tonne (9.4%) was acquired by Arcelor Mittal India Limited. These two companies have no steel plants in Odisha.
Few days back, Director of Mines had served show cause notice to JSW Steel. In its show-cause notice to JSW Steel, the Director Mines mentioned that, in Narayanposh iron ore mine, the JSW has dispatched only 2,45,829.58 MT iron ore which is 4,81,853 MT iron ore and 388. 47MT Manganese ore short of the prescribed target of dispatch and, thus, JSW violated Rule 12A(1) of MCR read with Para 8.1and schedule “D” of the MDPA.
In Ganua block, the JSW has dispatched only 34,683.17 MT which is 78,419 .83 MTs short of the prescribed target of dispatch. In case of Nuagaon block , the company dispatched only 2,56,718.98 MT which is 7,53,081 .02 MT short of the prescribed target of dispatch In Jajang block, it dispatched 3,07,173.48 MT which is 17,70,736 .08 MT short of the prescribed target of dispatch. Thus till September 21, the JSW Ltd’ total dispatch shortfall was 30, 84,090.91 MT. Calculating at conservative prices 62-65%Fe grade iron ore at Rs 3,286 per tonne for lumps.
Sajjan Jindal led JSW had won 4 major blocks which earlier held by KJS Ahluwalia Group and Rungta Mines Ltd Group– Nuagaon (won on January 31),Narayanposhi ( won on February 2) and Ganua ( won on February 5) and Jajang ( won January 6) – with total ore reserve of 1,138.34 million tonnes. With the 4 Mines, an iron ore reserves linkage of more than 1,100 million tonnes had been secured for JSW Steel of Sajjan Jindal.
The JSW has violated Rule 12A(1) of MCR, 2016 read with Schedule D of MDPA in ensuring minimum 80% dispatch of the average of the annual production of two immediately preceding years on pro-rata basis from the auctioned mines, which resulted Rs 1,154.68 crore loss to Odisha.
Till September, the JSW failed to dispatch 30, 84,090.91 MT iron ore as per agreement for which the Government lost huge amount of revenue. The Mines Director slapped show cause notice to the JSW for violation of the MCR rule. The Director earlier had written to the JSW to take steps to ensure strict adherence to the above mentioned provision and maintain the prescribed production and dispatch; otherwise it would be liable for action in accordance with the rules.
