The mines ministry has said that there is no plan to cap the price of iron ore as steel-making raw material is abundantly available in the country and price regulation would be equivalent to a throwback to the pre-liberalisation era. It also said that the India is planning to expand the iron ore production and that will take care of market dynamics.
Union minister of state for power, coal, new and renewable energy and mines Piyush Goyal said “it’s an open market. Our approach in this whole thing is that we want to expand the iron ore production and that itself will take care of market dynamics.” Besides, Mines Secretary Arun Kumar has said that the country produced 129 million tonnes (MT) of iron ore in 2014-15, 156 MT in 2015-2016 and 192 MT in 2016-17. He also said that the iron ore production has been going up and they are focusing on that.
The government had earlier formed a panel under the chairmanship of the additional secretary in the ministry of steel, to look at an ore pricing formula for iron ore to ensure that the miners do not indulge in profiteering and the raw material does not comes at too high a price to the steel makers. The panel also has members from ministries like coal and mines.