Odisha Mining Corporation registering 7.7 million tons of iron ore business turnover during the financial year 2016-17

Bhubaneswar:5/8/17: With Orissa Mining Corporation registering 7.7 million tons of iron ore business turnover during the financial year 2016-17, the state-run mining company is all set to achieve its highest ever production.

Despite the global market slowdown, OMC could sale around 7.7 million tons of iron ore during the financial year 2016-17 against the total sale of 4.5 million tons during 2015-16.  The sale of iron ore up to 31st July of current year ( 2017-18) has crossed 2.14 million tons thereby recording an increase of 9% over the same period of last year. Similarly, in spite of the drastic fall in ferro-chrome price, OMC has started its business operation for sale of around 1 MT chromites during 2017-18 against 0.8 million ton of sale in last financial year. The sale value of this production is expected to be around Rs.2800 cr which also would be highest in comparison to last 5 years. The Corporation has scaled up its net profit to Rs.846 cr during the financial year 2016-17 after paying all taxes.

Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi today reviewed OMC’s activities and directed the engineers and officers of the department to adopt innovative methods for scaling up mining operations and business transactions.

Officials said during the year 2015-16 the Corporation paid Rs.1415 crore to Govt towards royalty, DMF, NMET, dividend, sales tax and income tax. During the year 2016-17 OMC paid Rs 1548 cr to Govt under the same heads. In the 1st quarter of the current year OMC has already paid Rs 300 cr towards royalty, dividend and sales tax. Sri Krishna also mentioned that work plan has been set to ramp up production to 20 MT by the year 2019-20.

In another significant development OMC has set up Odisha Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd (OMECL) as a 100% subsidiary of OMC. The corporation will conduct exploration activities for new mining sites. The scope of the exploration work has been listed out by a committee headed by Director of Mines. Four manganese blocks in Bolangir, 4 bauxite blocks in Rayagada, 7 iron ore blocks in Khandadhar, 1 iron ore block in Thakurani-A have been identified for exploration through OMECL.

Principal Secretary Steel & Mines Sri Raj Kumar Sharma, Principal Secretary Industry Sri Sanjeeb Chopra, MD OMC Sri Vineel Krishna, Chief General Manager  Sri Nrusingha Charan Sahoo, AGM Sri Abhiram Sahoo along with senior officers, mining engineers, geologists and technical experts of MOC participated  in the discussions.