Ore dumped by British is now lottery for MOIL

NAGPUR: When the British left the country, they took away things that would have been useful to them. They also dumped many things that would have been difficult to cart back home. Interestingly, something they just threw away like bread crust was unwanted manganese which has now turned into huge dumps.

Enjoying the fruits of the British legacy is the city-based Manganese Ore India Limited (MOIL) which is set to hit the capital markets in a fortnight.

There are some mines from where almost 30% of production comes from dumps with the general average being 15%. MOIL has 10 mines spread across Maharashtra and MP with all having such dumps. The oldest are near the Kandri underground mine, 40 kms from Nagpur. It produces almost 60,000 tonnes of which over 10% comes from the discarded ore.

The stockpile of discardedore results in a top-up of MOIL's production by almost 15%. The company produces 1.1 million tones of manganese per annum which is close to half of the domestic demand.