However, KIOCL Chairman and Managing Director S. Murari told reporters that he was still hopeful of a positive response from the centre. The KIOCL has applied for a 20 year extention of the existing lease to mine on 4,065 hectares and exclusion from the area earmarked for the Kudremukh National Park.
``The state government has recommended favourably and asked the Union government to extent our lease by one year. In this time, the state will conduct studies and issue the final notification of the National Park area, which will hopefully exclude the KIOCL mining area,'' Murari said.
The preliminary gazette notification of the National Park was issued by the government in 1987. ``Public hearings in the three affected areas of Chikamagalur, Puttur and Kundapura have now been completed and the reports of the assistant commissioners have been filed. Now the decision on the final area, including exclusions, should not take much time,'' Murari pointed out.
The KIOCL has already had one extention, and the state has now recommended for another one-year extention. If granted, then the state has to take a decision about the company's application for a 20 year mining licence within next July, as there is no provision for a third extention under environmental laws, Murari said.
The company is presently holding talks with the Andhra Pradesh government and looking at prospects of setting up mining operations at Ongole. ``We are also looking at prospects in Kozhikode in Kerala and Salem in Tamil Nadu, where similar low grade iron ore deposits are there,'' Murari outlined.
He however said there was no question of shifting the company's operations from Kudremukh to Sandur in Bellary, as suggested by environmentatlists. ``Our expertise is in mining low grade iron ore and converting it to export quality. The Sandur ore is too rich for our kind of operations,'' he clarified. The company however was planning on a seperate mining operation in Bellary district, he added.
On the environmental front, Murari said the KIOCL had actually added to the greenary in the area, rather than depletion. ``We have planted over five to seven acres of herbal plants. And satellite studies conducted in 1976, '86 and '96 show that we have added 6.4 acres of greenary to the area,'' he maintained.