Steel major SAIL-owned Gua iron ore mine in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand will resume production tonight following go ahead from the state pollution control board, a senior official of the PSU said today.

The mining activity in Gua mines was suspended since June, 2011, in the absence of environment and pollution department clearances, which has now been procured.

“Production will start in three shifts following the green signal from all departments concerned including environment and pollution control board,” A K Singh, DGM, Chief of Communication, SAIL said.

Singh said that initially, the production capacity of the oldest and largest mechanised Gua mine will be 2.4 million tonnes.

In February, SAIL Chairman C S Verma had said that SAIL’s mines were all set to jack up its iron ore production to 39 million tonnes per annum in tandem with its mega expansion plan of producing over 23.6 million tones per annum hot metal from the present capacity of 13.2 million tonnes.

The expansion was expected to be completed by 2013-14, Verma had said.

SAIL’s Raw Material Division (RMD), which run seven captive iron-more mines at Kiriburu, Meghahatuburu, Gua and Chiria in Jharkhand and Bolani, Barsua and Kalta in Odisha, was working on the modernisation and capacity expansion of mines in the eastern India.

SAIL will invest 10,284 crore for development of the mines under RMD as well as Bhillai to cater its increased iron-ore requirements.

Besides, Verma had claimed that Gua Mine will be developed up to 10 MTPA along with installation of beneficiation and pelletisation facilities with an investment of Rs 3,000 crores.

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