BHUBANESWAR Dec 12 (Reuters) - India's top iron ore producing eastern Orissa state has stopped issuing iron ore export permits for cargoes shipped via two ports in southern Andhra Pradesh state, Orissa mines minister told Reuters.
"The Gangavaram and Kakinada ports did not cooperate" with the state mines and steel department's queries on the volume of the ore exported through these ports and the mechanism they followed to prevent illegal exports, minister Raghunath Mohanty said.
The state government had sought such details from all the ports that exported iron ore from the state.
"We will not issue the permits until they (the port authorities) submit details and tell us what system they have," a senior official of the steel and mines department, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
On the total export of 35 million tonnes iron ore from the country, 2 million tonnes were shipped through these ports in the first seven months of the current fiscal year ending March, data from the Federation of Indian Minerals and Industry (FIMI), a trade body, showed. (Reporting by Jatindra Dash; Editing by Rajesh Pandathil)
Source : af.reuters.com