The Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) is all set to achieve the highest ever production and sale targets.
This was revealed at a review meeting held under chairmanship of Chief Secretary AP Padhi at the OMC office here on Saturday. OMC Chairman Sanjaya Chopra and Managing Director Vineel Krishna presented the updates for discussion.
It was revealed that, despite the global market slowdown, the OMC could sell around 7.7 million tonnes of iron ore during the financial year 2016-17 against the total sale of 4.5 MT during 2015-16. The sale of iron ore up to 31st July of current year 2017-18 has crossed 2.14 MT.
Similarly, in spite of the drastic fall in ferrochrome price, the State-run company has started its business operation for sale of around 1 MT chromites during 2017-18 against 0.8 MT of sale in last financial year. The sale value of this production is expected to be around Rs 2,800 crore, which also would be highest in comparison to last the five years. The corporation scaled up its net profit to Rs 846 crore during 2016-17 after paying all taxes.
MD Krishna appraised that during 2015-16, the corporation paid Rs 1,415 crore to the Government towards royalty, DMF, NMET, dividend, sales tax and income tax. During 2016-17, it paid Rs 1,548 cr under the same heads. In the 1st quarter of the current financial year, it has already paid Rs 300 crore. He said a work plan has been set to ramp up production to 20 MT by the year 2019-20.
In another significant development, the OMC has set up Odisha Mineral Exploration Corporation ltd (OMECl) for exploration activities. Four manganese blocks in Balangir, four bauxite blocks in Rayagada, seven iron ore blocks in Khandadhar and one iron ore block in Thakurani-A have been identified for exploration through the OMECl.