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| Inter-departmental panel to help check illegal mining |
| BS Reporter / Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar Oct 14, 2009, 00:12 IST |
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The Orissa government has decided to constitute an inter departmental committee of various revenue generating departments for sharing of intelligence, resources and manpower with a view to check illegal mining activities in the state.
This is expected to provide a platform to the departments for revenue generation and enforcement activity, which will help in checking the illegal mining.
The panel will be headed by the Transport Commissioner (TC) and will include commissioner of commercial taxes, commissioner of excise and director of mines among others. The decision to constitute the committee was taken in the first meeting of the reconstituted State Level Task Force (SLTF) headed by the chief secretary Tarun Kanti Mishra.
It was informed in the meeting that the state level enforcement squad (SLES) has been further strengthened with creation of three section of force headed by a mining official. SLES has raided 28 storage and trading licensees for iron ore, chrome ore, mangnese, coal in Cuttack and Jajpur mining circles.
The enforcement squad seized 23,744 tonnes of iron ore fines, 23,122 tonne of chrome ore, 587 tonne of coal and 15,953 tonne pyraxinite. The license of 24 storage depos has been suspended for violation of the OMPTS Rules 2007.
Further, the government has decided to empower the forest range officers attached with the SLES with state level jurisdiction for detection, seizure and investigation of illegal mining cases. The forest department officials, along with the officials of the mining department will take action against illegal mining in forest areas.
The meeting also decided that IBM should deal with any violation of the implementation of the provisions of mining plan under the MCDR, 1988. IBM will be requested to strengthen its monitoring in close association with the state mining officials.
On the operations of the weigh bridge and check gates, the SLTF was informed that a committee has been constituted to study check gates and weigh bridges and suggest measures to strengthen, upgrade and modernise them.
It has also been decided to check the activities of the crusher units and storage depots since they appear to be involved in the clandestine mining activities. Their activities will be checked by SLES, sources added.
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