The Centre has given an in-principle approval to KIOCL for mining operations in Devadari range of Ballari district in Karnataka.
The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) accorded stage-1 in-principle approval on June 24 for diversification of 401.57 ha of forest land at Devadari Hill Range in Ballari district of Karnataka for the purpose of iron ore and manganese ore mining by KIOCL. This includes 388 ha for mining and 13.57 ha for approach road.
With this approval, KIOCL will get a captive mine of its own. The captive mine will provide iron ore raw material security to the company.
KIOCL’s pellet plant in Mangaluru has a manufacturing capacity of 3.5 million tpa. The company produced 2.21 million tonne of pellets in FY21 as against 2.37 million tonne in FY20.
In 2017, KIOCL had applied to the Karnataka government for allotment of the captive mines in the Devadari ranges under the quota available for PSUs.
KIOCL is planning to start mining operations in Devadari ranges by 2022-23. The company is hopeful of getting around 33 million tonne of iron ore from the Devadari ranges.
KIOCL is planning to mine around 0.3 million tpa for the first five years and scale it up to two million tpa over the years. Devadari mine is expected to generate around 500 direct jobs and an equal number of indirect jobs.