From Our Correspondent
Amaravati: The Chandrababu Naidu government has issued notices to Bharathi Cements for the cancellation of its two limestone mining licences and asked the company to respond within 15 days. Similar notices have also been served to ACC (now owned by Adani) and Ramco Cements, putting all three companies under the scanner for leases allegedly granted in violation of the Centre’s auction-based mining policy.
The move comes as fresh scrutiny intensifies over how Bharathi Cements secured the controversial 2024 allotments during the previous Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy administration.
The Reddy family-owned Bharathi Cements, which runs a major plant in Kadapa, never held a valid mining lease before 2024. The company originally received a Letter of Intent (LOI) in 2009, when it functioned as Raghuram Cements, but failed to obtain the mandatory environment, forest and land-related clearances required to convert the LOI into an actual mining lease. With deadlines repeatedly missed, the state government issued cancellation notices in 2016.
The regulatory landscape shifted further in 2015 when the Centre amended the MMDR Act, making auctions mandatory for all major mineral leases, including limestone. This change effectively rendered the old LOI route untenable. As a result, for more than a decade Bharathi Cements depended on third-party suppliers and private mine operators to keep its plant running—an expensive arrangement that placed it at a structural disadvantage compared to rivals with captive mines.
Things changed in early 2024. Following High Court directions to hear the company’s case, the Jagan government issued fresh orders on February 2, 2024, granting two limestone leases to Bharathi Cements in Kadapa district. These grants were made without an auction, drawing objections from the Indian Bureau of Mines and the Union Ministry of Mines for violating the Centre’s auction-based policy.
ACC–Adani and Ramco Cements also received limestone leases in the same period under similar circumstances. The current Chandrababu Naidu administration has now questioned the legality of all these allocations and issued notices asking the companies to justify why their leases should not be cancelled.