BENGALURU: Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd (KIOCL) has been allotted iron ore mines in Ballari district by the state government. This would mark its return to mining in the state after 11 years following the closure of its operations in Kudremukh in 2006, as per a Supreme Court order.
The pellet plant will come up over an area of more than 473 hectares at the Devadari Range, with an investment of `1,500-2,000 crore. A release said the firm had initiated the process to obtain the necessary clearances. KIOCL CMD Malay Chatterjee hailed the breakthrough and said the firm was on track to becoming a major producer in two years, as they wait for ore securities.
Chatterjee said that as part of the Make in India initiative, the firm has carried out pilot projects with international firms wherein pellets manufactured by KIOCL were sold to the firms. He added that the firm’s blast furnace unit, with a capacity of 2.16 lakh tons, which was under suspension since 2009, had been repaired and the unit was ready for operation to produce foundry grade pig iron. After being forced to shut down in the ecologically sensitive Kudremukh, KIOCL’s operations in the state were restricted to a 3.5 million tonne per annum pellet plant in Mangaluru.