Mining, ore transport still disrupted at Surjagarh

  • | Friday | 24th March, 2017

Nagpur: It's not business as usual yet at Gadchiroli's Surjagarh iron ore mines belonging to Lloyd Metal and Energy Limited (LMEL). which include mining the ore, felling trees in the area, and along the transport corridor. However, LMEL has not been able to evacuate mined ore for more than 10-15 days so far.The mine is under complete police protection, so mining is underway. However, security forces are not available on daily basis to guard the moving trucks, leading to several breaks in transport of ore out of the mine. After Naxalites torched 80 vehicles of the company in December last year, mining was revived in February under police protection.

Nagpur: It's not business as usual yet at Gadchiroli's Surjagarh iron ore mines belonging to Lloyd Metal and Energy Limited (LMEL). After Naxalites torched 80 vehicles of the company in December last year, mining was revived in February under police protection. However, LMEL has not been able to evacuate mined ore for more than 10-15 days so far.The mine is under complete police protection, so mining is underway. However, security forces are not available on daily basis to guard the moving trucks, leading to several breaks in transport of ore out of the mine. It is possible to take the ore out of the danger zone only on days when police protection is available, say sources.The number of workers employed by the company at present stands at 70 as against 200 to 300 earlier, said sources aware of the developments in LMEL.After the Naxalites burned the vehicles, leading to a loss of around Rs17 crore, work resumed only on February 5. However, within a week, operations were stopped as the police personnel were deployed on election duty till February 22.In March too, work could not go on consistently. There have been many occasions when the gap has been for more than a day. This is because the police force stationed at the mine is often deployed for other duties in the area. On such days, the company's operations have to be halted, said sources.A senior official in Gadchiroli police said force is deployed for different operations. which include mining the ore, felling trees in the area, and along the transport corridor. There have been times when the force could not be deployed for the transport corridor, which leads to gaps in operations.The police vehicles follow the consignment throughout the entire stretch of the risk zone. So, even as mining continues, transportation can happen only every alternate days usually, said sources.The iron ore mined at Surjagarh is used in the company's direct reduced iron (DRI) plant at Gugghus in neighbouring Chandrapur district. Either the mined ore or iron pellets have to be used in the plant as raw material, with no possibility of alternate feedstock. So gaps in availability of ore hampers this plant's operations also.The police have placed a request before the forest department to get land for setting up a post in the area. A decision is expected soon, said a source in the police force.The company, which has been allotted 71 hectare of land for the project, has so far got 4 acres under its possession. The approval from the forest department is needed for the transfer of the rest. As per the process, trees have to be cleared after which the land is transferred. So far, felling has been done 15 hectare area.

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