India’s ministry of steel has approved a proposal from government-run pellet producer KIOCL Limited to operationalize the Devadari iron ore mine in southern state of Karnataka, government sources said on Monday, June 17. A mining lease has been executed with Mines and Geology department of Karnataka government for extracting iron and manganese ore on 388 hectares of land for a period of 50 years. The mining operations in Devadari will offer a lifeline to the KIOCL, following the closure of iron ore mining in Kudremukh in Chikkamagaluru district in 2006 and the company has been dependent on ore from NMDC Limited’s supplies from mines in Chhattisgarh state to feed raw materials to its 3.5 million mt per year pellet plant at Mangaluru, Karnataka. KIOCL is expecting to mine estimated 3 million mt of iron ore from Devadari, sources said.
