Bhubaneswar, May 22: The state government has set a target to produce 100 million tonnes of iron ore in 2016-17. Last year, the state produced 80.87 million tonnes, while 53.66 million tonnes were produced in 2014-15.
The industry is showing symptoms of gradual revival after witnessing slump for a few years.
State steel and mines secretary R.K. Sharma said that the mining sector could contribute much more to the state.
"We are trying to find out how we can improve the scale of our mining operations. We have started working on our target by auctioning mines. The state has auctioned a mining block and initiated process for auction of other six mines," he said.
Odisha has recently auctioned the Ghoraburhani-Sagasahi East iron ore block having a mineral reserve of 99.59 million tonnes. "We are taking expeditious steps to prepare some more limestone, iron ore and bauxite blocks for putting them into auction during the current year," said steel and mines minister Prafulla Kumar Mallick.
Mallick said the total production of minerals in 2015-16 was to 234.82 million tonnes with dispatch of 240 million tonnes, the highest production achieved by the state in the past 10 years.
The state has witnessed a 40 per cent hike in production of chromite in 2015-16. With the increase in exploration of iron ore and chromite, steel production has also gone up from 11.57 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 20.38 million tonnes in 2015-16.
Stating that Odisha had also got significant deposits of beach sand heavy minerals, Mallick said that 177 kilometres of coastline from Andhra Pradesh to Paradip was explored and a deposit of 246 million tonnes of heavy minerals was assessed.
The state government urged the Centre for simplification of the regulatory framework for mineral exploration while considering the application for forest clearance.
Union minister of state for steel and mines Vishnu Deo Sai, who inaugurated a conference on mining in Odisha, organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) here on Friday, stressed on the need for modernisation of mineral exploration and raising.
