Orissa Minerals Development Co Ltd (OMDC) has asked Mecon to prepare a plan for revival of its operations. The listed miner, now under RINL fold, is struggling to return to activity.
“Apart from renewal of mine leases, OMDC needs to have a new roadmap for restarting its mining activity. Mecon will submit a report in June for resumption of commercially viable mining activity,” Mr P. Madhusudan, Finance Director of RINL, told Business Line .
Mr Madhusudan, who is on OMDC board, said the company's earlier practice of getting mines operated by contractors would be abandoned. “The board has decided to opt for in-house operations.”
OMDC has three non-mechanised, and currently un-operative, iron ore and manganese mines in Odhisha.
Whole-time directors
The OMDC board has also decided to have two whole-time Directors — for operations and finance.
OMDC had resumed development and mining operations on December 29 last year at its Kolha Roida iron ore and manganese mines and Dalki manganese mines in Keonjhar district. But, it had to stop work almost immediately in the absence of permission for lifting of minerals from the local authority.
Performance
Last week OMDC informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that it opted for not reporting un-audited results. It said it would report audited FY'12 results by May 31. The nine-month performance showed an operational loss of Rs 39.27 crore against a full-year operational loss of Rs 33.18 crore in FY'11. It, however, made a net profit of Rs 3.17 crore till December 31, 2011. This is largely because of its treasury revenues from its Rs 798.03 crore reserves. It's paid-up capital stands just at Rs 60 lakh.
The statutory auditors in the nine-month limited review observed that “amortisation of lease premium for mines, rates of depreciation on different fixed assets, valuation of stock in trade and payment of conveyance expenses to attend board meetings need to be checked thoroughly for future accounting as necessary”.
The Rs 10 OMDC stock on Wednesday closed up 0.5 per cent at Rs 34,248 on the BSE 16.5 per cent.
RINL holds 50.01 per cent of the low-float stock through its subsidiary Eastern Investments.