Five companies, including JSW Steel, have bagged iron ore blocks in the Surjagarh area of Gadchirol district of Maharashtra. The companies including Sunflag Iron and Steel, JSW Group, Industrial Equipment and Technical Services, Jalna-based Om Sairam Steels and Alloys, and Raipur-based Natural Resources Energy were declared preferred bidders for a composite licence at the auction held by the state government.

With a composite licence, the companies now have the requisite permits to carry out prospecting, exploration, and extract iron ore from the block.

Apart from iron ore, Ambuja Cements has emerged as a successful bidder for mining limestone in Devalmara Katepalli pocket, which is also in Gadchiroli. Shree cement was the successful bidder for a limestone block in Chandrapur.

At present, Lloyds Metals and Energy (LMEL) is the single mining company in the district and has obtained environmental clearance to scale up operations to 10 million tonne a year as the three million tonne permitted earlier. LMEL has a plan to set up an integrated steel complex in the district and will set up a 70,000 million tonne DRI plant at Kondseri in Gadchiroli in the first phase. The second phase involves setting up of a four million tonne pellet making plant, and a slurry pipeline, and a techno-feasibility study is being conducted for having a three million tone HR coil plant in the third phase.

Gadchiroli mines have high grade iron ore which is utilised by the automotive and other sectors. The government has also come up with a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for special grade steel manufacturing.