With the D-day for shutting down its mines ticking away, uncertainty haunts Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd (KIOCL), Asia's largest state-owned mining enterprise, located in the bio-diversity rich Western Ghats of Karnataka.

As the export-oriented firm braces to comply with the Supreme Court October 2002 order to stop mining activity by Dec 31, 2005, for environmental reasons, its 6,200-strong workforce is on tenterhooks.

But the beleaguered company hopes to revive its fortunes when the apex court hears its petition in January for taking up primary ore mining in the 1,452 hectares of broken area or slope stability work in 54 hectares to extract the remaining ore and protect the environment.

"Though the apex court has declined to review its order on closing the mines when the unions and workers approached it recently, it has posted to hear our petition seeking directions for undertaking slope stability work, which will enable us to retain some employees," a top KIOCL official told here.

"Since we have the technology and safeguards in place now to prevent any ecological fallout of mining primary ore, we will be able to maintain our export commitments in future if the court permits us to continue the operations."

Even as the company's fate lies in the hands of the apex court, at stake are the jobs of its 2,000 employees and the livelihood of its 4,200 casual workers, whose contracts will get terminated once the mines are shut.

"We have prayed to the court for allowing the company to do the slope stability work instead of outside agencies under the ministry of environment and forests so that we can retain as many employees for executing it," the official said.

The mines have been in use over the last 35 years.

Of the estimated 630 million tonnes of weathered ore and 450 tonnes of primary ore in the area, around 325 million tonnes of raw magnetite ore has been mined, with 109 million tonnes accruing as concentrate.

The company has been mining about 40,000 tonnes of ore every day for producing 3.5 million tonnes of pellets and 2.5 million tonnes of concentrate for exporting them to about 10 countries, including Japan, China and Taiwan.

The company claims to have taken measures to protect ecology by planting eight million saplings in mined areas, checking pollution of the Bhadra river and preventing damage to the Lakya dam.

But the coming into being of the 600-sq km Kudremukh National Park (KNP) in 1987 had made the continuation of mining activity untenable.

"The park (KNP) is a rich repository of bio-diversity and has a large population of endangered species, including the lion-tailed macaque and tiger. The Western Ghats is considered among the world's 35 sensitive bio-spots," said R. Sukumar, head of the centre for ecological sciences in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) here.

Quoting various surveys and studies carried out by independent organisations, environmental lobbies accuse the company of ravaging the rich flora and fauna in the KNP, besides causing irreparable damage to water resources in the Sahyadri forests.

According to Kannada litterateur and Jnanpith award winner U.R. Ananthamurthy, it is unwise to continue mining further in the region as economic gains from such activity cannot be equated with the huge losses to the ecology.

The greens contend that mining activity was eroding the irrigation potential of the Bhadra reservoir at Lakkavalli in Shimoga district.

A report prepared by NGOs like the Nature Conservation Guild, Green Watches of Tumkur, Kudremukh Wildlife Foundation, Mangalore, has established that mining operation was leading to excess accumulation of silt in the reservoir.

Contesting the claims of the NGOs, the company official said the environment impact assessment and management plan report prepared by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, declared there was no threat to the ecology in the region if mining was allowed in the existing areas with eco-friendly safeguards.

"Of the 600-sq km national park, the mined area constitutes a mere one percent (six sq. km) of the 60,000 hectares. The mining operations are restricted to only 485 hectares or seven percent of the total area," the official asserted.