Indian Railways and Orissa government on Monday resolved the crisis over movement of minerals from the state by agreeing to put in place an interim mechanism to find out the legality of the mineral consignments.
Even though the issues have been sorted out, it will take some more time for normalcy to prevail. Since the lifting of Section 144 from the railway sidings and the release of the seized railway rakes are under judicial purview, some more days are needed to make the three sidings-Barbil, Bansapani, and Jhurudi-functional. The three sidings are important for loading of iron ore and manganese on railway rakes.
Union steel secretary Atul Chaturvedi on Monday called a meeting on behalf of the cabinet secretary in Delhi to resolve the issue. It was attended by railways board member & secretary (traffic) Vivek Sahai and Orissa steel & mines principal secretary Ashok Dalwai.
?Indian Railways has accepted our arguments,? Dalwai told FE. He said as per the interim mechanism, the railways would allow unloading of minerals only after the inspection of the transit permit (TP) issued by state mining department officials. Not only that, the railway rakes will be allotted to the consignee only after a state government official signs the requisition letter.
Dalwai said that a meeting would take place at the level of Orissa chief secretary on April 15 to put in place the interim mechanism. Railway officials will also attend the meeting.
The state government has constituted a high-level committee under the chairmanship of Guru Ray, commissioner, rail coordination & special secretary, to formulate a policy to check illegal movement of minerals.
The steel & mines principal secretary said a foolproof system would be introduced keeping in mind the recommendations of the committees.
There has been no rakes movement in Orissa since early March. On Monday, Tata Steel managing director HM Nerurkar, addressing a press conference in Kolkata, said there was no despatch of iron ore from Joda mines in Orissa to its steel producing plant at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand for the past 17 days. ?There is zero despatch of iron ore from our mines to our plant in the past 17 days, but production is not yet affected,? Nerurkar had said.