Iron ore handling has commenced at Mormugao port from Wednesday after a gap of over 18 months, following the easing of the ban on the sale of iron ore that was already extracted, by the Supreme Court. The ban on extracting fresh iron ore stays.
The Mechanical Ore Handling Plant of Mormugao port is capable of loading a Panamax size vessel in a single day.
On October 5, by an interim order the Supreme Court banned extraction and transportation of Goan iron ore in a bid to clamp down on illegal mining thereby freezing shipments.
The State government had already conducted two phases of e-auctioning of such ore under the supervision of a Supreme Court monitoring committee.
The Government of Goa had earlier invited bids for sale of about 11 million tonnes of ore lying at various locations, through e-auction, following the Supreme Court order. The buyers will be allowed to ship the ore overseas or sell locally. About 2 lakh tonnes of ore had been lying at Mormugao Port.
