The government of the eastern Indian state of Odisha has granted a one-month extension of the September 30, 2020, deadline for former mining lease holders to liquidate their stocks from iron ore mines that have been auctioned to new owners, a government official said on Thursday, September 24.
The official said that a large number of petitions had been received by the government from former mining lease holders of iron ore mines who, owing to logistical bottlenecks caused by the coronavirus pandemic and poor market conditions, were not able to remove and liquidate stocks of iron ore from their erstwhile assets within the September 30 deadline.
Acceding to the petition, the government has now extended the deadline for removal and liquidating of iron ore stockpiles to October 30, 2020, he said.
A number of iron ore mining leases in Odisha expired on March this and these mines had been auctioned to new owners by the Odisha government, but the former owners still had rights over stocks of iron ore that had piled up before March 31, which had to be removed and liquidated for the new mining lease holders to commence operations, the official added.