Though the mining crisis in India led to an unprecedented decline in iron ore exports in 2012-13, following a regulatory crackdown, the official statistical department had merely glossed over this.
Figures compiled by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics, under the commerce ministry, showed India’s iron ore exports jumped a whopping 157 per cent to 121 million tonnes in 2012-13, compared with 47 million tonnes a year ago.
The same data showed the export value for iron ore declined to about $1.6 billion from about $4.6 billion through the same period.
These figures vary significantly from data released by other entities.
According to the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, outbound shipments of iron ore declined from 61.74 million tonnes in 2011-12 to 18.37 million tonnes in 2012-13.
Latest provisional data from the mines ministry showed iron ore exports during the April-December 2012 period stood at 14.2 million tonnes.
“We have released the principal commodity wise figures for March 2013, as well as April-March 2012-13.
“The item level data for March 2013 is currently under validation,”
He added according to provisional figures, in 2012-13, iron ore exports stood at only 17 million tonnes, compared with 47 million tonnes in 2011-12.
A revision would be made when item-wise figures are released by end of this month.
To a query on whether the revision would lead to a change in the value of export figures for the item, he said, “There will be no change in the value figures for exports.”
To increase domestic availability of iron ore, the government had, last year, increased the duty on iron ore exports to 30 per cent.
Also, due to various illegal activities in the mining sector, exports from two of the largest iron ore producing and exporting states, Goa and Karnataka, were banned.
Earlier, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation had made an error, showing industrial growth for January 2012 at 6.8 per cent, against the actual 1.1 per cent, owing to confusion over sugar output data sent by the Directorate of Sugar.
