Bhilai Steel gets iron ore mining rights in Chhattisgarh

Bhilai Steel Plant, the most profitable unit of the state-owned Steel Authority of India, has got the mining rights lease for over 2,028 hectares of iron ore reserves in Chhattisgarh for 20 years, a senior company official said Wednesday.

Steel Authority, India's biggest steel maker, was trying for about 25 years to get the mining rights to the Rowghat deposits to feed the Bhilai unit, located in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, some 30 km west of state capital Raipur.

"Bhilai Steel Plant has been granted the Rowghat-F deposit mining lease over an area of 2,029 hectares in Kanker and Narayanpur districts," said the company's executive director in charge of mines M.K. Bindu.

"The state government gave the lease for 20 years after getting the environmental and forestry clearance," Bindu told IANS.

The Rowghat deposit-F falls under the Matla reserved forest area, and is located about 185 km south of the Bhilai plant.

Rowghat has estimated reserves of 500 million tonnes of high grade iron ore that the Bhilai plant needs to support its capacity upgrade programme.

The plant proposes to pump in Rs.17,000 crore on modernisation and expansion to raise its annual hot metal production to 7.5 million tonnes by 2011-12 from 5.3 million tonnes now.

"The execution of the Rowghat lease has ensured uninterrupted supply of iron ore for the next 20 years," Bindu said.

The plant last fiscal had seen a record production of 5.4 million tonnes of hot metal and has set a target of 5.8 million tonnes this financial year.

Last updated on Oct 28^th, 2009 at 12:35 pm IST--IANS