India: SC asks Centre to consider possible cap on iron ore mining in Odisha

The Supreme Court on 14 August, 2023, asked the Centre to consider for its view on a possible cap on iron ore mining in Odisha, which accounts for around 55% of the country's iron ore production.

The Supreme Court was responding to advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO Common Cause, who suggested that at the annual rate of extraction, or what's permitted (227.13 mnt), the state would exhaust its current known reserves of ore (4,748.52 mnt from 58 working mines) in 20 years.

The court was taking stock of implementation of its past orders, including the 2017 order penalising miners in Odisha, under an earlier version of Section 21(5) of MMDR, with a total recovery amount of more than INR 17,500 crores from them. The state is believed to have failed to recover compensation of INR 2,622 crore. The Centre's been asked to file its reply before eight weeks.

Production caps, under the Supreme Court's orders during its crackdown on illegal and unrestrained mining in the past, continue to be adhered to both in Goa and Karnataka. While for Goa the cap is 20 mnt annually, for Karnataka the apex court lifted the cap from 35 mnt to 50 mnt per annum in August 2022.