Bhubaneswar, Nov. 26: A committee of ministers entrusted with the task of finding solutions to the industrial raw material crisis in the state met for the first time here, today but appeared to be heading nowhere.

The committee, headed by finance minister Prasanna Acharya, traced the genesis of the crisis to the multi-crore mining scam in the state, which has brought operations in over 150 iron ore and manganese mines to a grinding halt.

However, the committee, which was constituted on October 30 and has industries minister Niranjan Pujari and steel and mines minister Rajani Kant Singh as its members, refrained from making instant recommendations.

“We will submit our report by January 30. We mainly discussed the modalities today,” said Acharya, who is only too conscious of the possibility of the issue being raised during the winter session of the state Assembly beginning tomorrow.

The state government has so far signed 89 MoUs in the industrial sector, including 50 for setting up steel plants. Of these, around 30 steel units, which have already gone into partial production, are passing through hard times with iron ore becoming scarce.

Odisha Steel Federation president P.L. Kandoi said: “We hope the committee of ministers come up with a solution. But it seems we will have to wait for another two months. Raw material shortage has forced the closure of almost 95 per cent of the smaller industrial units.”

The steel units are neither getting raw material from the state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) nor from the open market where private players rule the roost.

Kandoi alleged that the OMC, whose inefficiency had resulted in the closure of some of its mining units, met barely five per cent of the requirements of the 324 big and small steel and sponge iron manufacturing units in the state. This made those mines dependent on private mine owners who, given the crisis triggered by the closure of a large number of mines in the wake of the scam, were out to fleece the consumers.

Sources said the situation was unlikely to change soon despite the steel and mines department having decided to reserve areas bearing iron ore, manganese, bauxite and chrome ore for prospecting and mining by the OMC, which is expected to make a fair and equitable distribution among the user industries. However, bulk of the mining fields still remains in the hands of private players, whose grip on the trade would take time to break.

The rap of the Shah Commission, which visited the state for the second time between November 1 and 11, notwithstanding, private mine owners are trying hard to get back to business using all kinds of fair and foul means.