The Inter Ministerial Group (IMG) on Wednesday recommended de-allocation of three more captive mines. This takes the total count of the de-allocated blocks to 11 so far.

The de-allocated blocks are Gondkhari allocated in November 2008 to Maharashtra Seamless, Dhariwal Infrastructure and Kesoram Industries. This block has geological reserves of nearly 99 million tonnes.

The second block is North Dhadu at North Karanpura in Jharkhand with 923.94 million tonnes of reserves. This was awarded in January 2006 to Jharkhand Ispat, Pavanjay Steel & Power Generation and Electrosteel Castings.

The third block is Choritand Tailiaya in Jharkhand with 27.42 million tonnes of reserves. This was allocated to Rungta Mines and Sunflag Iron Steel Ltd in May 2008.

The IMG also recommended invoking bank guarantees of four captive mines. These include: Jayaswal Neeco’s Moitra awarded in May 2005, DB Power Ltd’s DurgapurII/Sarya allocated in November 2007, and Arcelor Mittal India Ltd’s and GVK Power’s Seregarha allocated in January 2008 and Dumri allotted to Nilanchal Iron & Steel and Bajran Ispat.

>Siddhartha.s@thehindu.co.in