Govt raises Rs 9,925 crore from NMDC isinvestment: Steel min

The government now holds 90 per cent stake in the navratna mining firm.

Singh said the share sale in NMDC was part of the Centre’s initiative to put the ownership of PSUs in public hands and to bring in improvement in the quality of corporate governance through public scrutiny,he said.

The recently concluded follow-on public offer (FPO) of NMDC was subscribed 1.25 times and received bids for over 41.38 crore shares against 33.22 crore shares on sale.

NMDC FPO was the third in the last fiscal,after that of power PSUs NTPC and REC,by the government under its share sale plan through which it has planned to raise Rs 25,000 crore in the last fiscal.

For 2010-11,the government is targeting to raise Rs 40,000 crore through disinvestment.

Mining giant NMDC plans to ramp up its annual production capacity to 50 million tonnes of iron ore by the year 2014-15 against about 28 million tonnes in 2008-09.

“NMDC,a Navaratna PSU of this Ministry,is the largest single Iron Ore producer and exporter with an annual production capacity of 30 million tonnes …it achieved a production of 28.52 million tonnes of iron ore,with a turnover of Rs 7564 crores and Profit after Tax of Rs 4,372 crores,” the official statement quoting the Minister said.

Further,Singh said,the country’s annual steel production capacity has reached 72 million tonnes during April-December,2009 against 66 million tonnes during 2008-09.

“… total crude steel production capacity by the year 2012 is estimated around 115 million tonnes,out of which around 33 million tonnes will be through brownfield expansion and around 27 million tonnes will be through greenfield expansion,” Singh said.

The steel ministry had earlier projected an annual steel production capacity of 124 million tonnes by 2011-12,which it has now lowered to 115 million tonnes. The minister indicated that the target could be further revised downwards.

“There may be a shortfall in Greenfield expansion projects basically due to problems in land acquisition,law and order and allocation of captive iron ore and coal mines,” Singh said.