New Delhi: Amid the nation-wide lockdown over novel coronavirus, the Supreme Court, Friday, heard a petition filed by Mideast Integrated Steel Ltd seeking extension of time to lift iron ore in the state via video conferencing and granted four weeks time to the mining company.
A two-judge bench of the apex court comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose also made it clear that the four months given to the mining company to lift extracted iron ore will commence after the situation gets normal in the country.
Earlier, M/S Mideast Integrated Steel LTD filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking extension of time to remove iron ore that has already been extracted by the company. The petitioner pleaded that it has not been able to sell off the already mined material because state has not given permission to move the ore.
The Supreme Court had earlier given two months time to mining companies to remove and sell already extracted ore and pay dues pending to the mining department.
The applicantcompany had excavated, processed and stacked 23,51,027.83 tons of minerals at the discharge point of RoidaI for onwards transportation to various buyers as well as for captive consumption in its own steel plant.
It is to be mentioned here that Mideast was granted licence by the Union government May 1994 for setting up a PigIron and Steel Manufacturing Plant near Duburi in Jajpurand it also holds a valid mining lease over 104.68 hectares of RoidaI ironore mines in village TintoBarbil near Keonjhar valid till March 2020.