BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government, acting on an interim court order, has agreed to let Tata SteelBSE 1.04 % resume mining from four key iron ore mines in the state, which account for more than half the steelmaker's requirement.

We have decided to implement the recent Orissa High Court interim order and mining has been allowed to resume until January 28 when the court is to take up the matter again," said state director of mines, Deepak Mohanty. With this, the company can resume mining at Joda East, Joda West, Bamberi and Katamati mines.

The development comes days after a Jharkhand High Court directed the state to issue express orders allowing the steelmaker to mine, until the leases were renewed. The state is to do this in a week or Tata Steel can resume operations by December 18. According to agency reports citing Tata Steel management, the steelmaker had imported 2.3 million tones of Australian ore and bought about 0.8 mt from steel miner NMDC in the last three months to run its more than 100-year-old steel plant in Jamshedpur because of the closure of its mines.

On May 16, the Supreme Court declared that a widely prevalent practice of "deemed extension", allowing operations while the lease was pending for a second renewal, was illegal. Ever since then, miners in Odisha and the steel and mines department, which was forced to shut down 26 operating mines, had been grappling to implement the law as interpreted by the apex court.

The state had time till November 15 to decide on the renewal of these leases. The sudden turn of events had forced the steelmaker to begin imports for its steel plant that has run mostly on captive mines. To make matters worse, a central government directive on July 18 implementing the Supreme Court May order led to the pollbound Hemant Soren government deciding in September that the Tatas could no longer operate their 90-year-old Nuamundi iron ore mines in Jharkhand. The company had moved the High Court.

While the Odisha government had issued express orders committing to renew captive mines of Steel Authority of IndiaBSE -1.81 % and Tata Steel before the November 15 deadline, the latter had not managed to get the forest clearances for the entire area to allow the execution of a fresh lease and was asked to halt mining since last month. Steel Authority of India's three leases have been executed, Mohanty clarified. order to Tata Steel for chrome mines critical to its ferrochrome business. But the "deeming provision" being no longer allowed since the July 18 amendment, mining cannot resume without execution of a fresh lease, said Mohanty.

Source : TET