Economic Times reported that the Centre has turned down Chhattisgarh's request to nominate three elected representatives from the Bastar region on the board of iron ore miner NMDC and spend 10% of its net profit on the local area development in the mineral rich state.
Mr Beni Prasad Verma minister of Steel said that the proposal was made by the Chhattisgarh government after a resolution on it was passed by the state assembly.
Mr Verma said that "The proposal of the state government of Chhattisgarh was examined and the state government has been apprised of the policy guidelines of Government of India and the inability of the Ministry of Steel to accept suggestion regarding the resolution of Chhattisgarh Vidhan Sabha."
He did not provide details on the issue. The demand was made on the ground that most of NMDC's iron ore production comes from the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, where it has 1,200 million tonnes of high grade iron ore reserves at the Bailadila mines.
According to Mr Verma, the state owned iron ore miner had paid INR 1,870.82 crore as royalty to the Chhattisgarh government between 2009-10 and 2011-12.
He denied that the mining major has any plans to open a registered office in Chhattisgarh's capital Raipur.
According to NMDC's website, the company is produces about 22 million tonnes of iron ore from Bailadila mines in Chhattisgarh, amounting to over 75% of its total production capacity at 29 million tonne. It also has plans to expand the iron ore mining capacity to 48 million tonne by the end of 2014-15.
In 2011-12, it had reported a total iron ore production of 27.26 million tonne and a net profit of INR 7,265.39 crore, while its total turnover was INR 11,261.89 crore.
