India’s steel minister Dharmendra Pradhan has reiterated that state-run Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) has had to procure iron ore from the open market and that the absence of captive mines is one of the factors in the steel mill’s losses, according to a statement made on Thursday, March 11.
The minister’s comment is significant against the backdrop of the Indian government’s approval for 100 percent disinvestment in the 7.3 million mt per year steel mill in the southern port town of Vishakhapatnam and the full privatisation of the assets.
Minister Pradhan said that RINL had made requests to several iron ore-bearing states like Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh for recommendation of iron ore assets for preferential allotment permitted to government companies under the Mines, Mineral Development and Regulation Act 2015 (MMDRA). He said that even the Ministry of Steel, the administrative authority for RINL, had submitted requests to the Odisha government for allocating an iron ore mine, but all such moves had failed to yield any result towards securing captive raw material sources for the steel producer.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy has sought an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to submit proposals for the revival of RINL without its privatization, including a plea for the latter’s intervention in securing a captive iron ore mine for the company.
Andhra Pradesh where the RINL steel mill is located has sought that the central government reverse its privatization decision as the losses of the company were only because of the lack of captive raw material availability.