IBM submits findings on cases of 87 errant miners

Steel & Mines department to decide on the issue soon

The state steel & mines department will soon take a call on the cases of 87 mines in the state which have been found to be raising ores beyond the IBM (Indian Bureau of Mines) approved Mining Plan in the last ten years.

As per the interim report given by a six-member committee headed by director (mines), there are cases of 87 mines where ore extraction has been beyond the IBM approved Mining Plan. The excess mining has been in case of iron ore, limestone, manganese and chromite and there are instances where the miners have raised ores in excess of the IBM approved Mining Plan for a year or so in the last ten years.

The committee was constituted as per the order of the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to look into cases of excessive lifting of minerals by the miners and recommend the imposition of penalty on the errant miners. The committee was thereafter referred to IBM which has already completed its scrutiny.

"IBM has completed its scrutiny on the issue and they have submitted the findings to the steel & mines department. The department will take a decision after due examination of the findings made by IBM”, a top official source told Business Standard.

Earlier, during the monsoon session of the state legislative assembly, the state industries minister Raghunath Mohanty had informed that eight out of 10 mines offered on lease to Tata Steel in Orissa by the state government had mined beyond the IBM approved mining plan during the last ten years. Nine out of 10 mines of the company were carrying out operations under deemed extension, according to the fact sheet provided by the minister in the assembly.

Officials of Tata Steel, had, however, clarified that their mining was regularized by IBM post facto.

Mohanty had also informed during the assembly session that the state government owned Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) was among the four other firms operating in the Joda-Barbil belt in Keonjhar district to have extracted minerals beyond the IBM approved mining plan.

Apart from OMC, the three other private miners were GSI Pvt Ltd, Narayani Sons and B D Agarwal.

The overall excess production from these four firms has been worked out to be around 44 lakh tonnes from 2002-03 till the end of 2009-10 and the market value of this excess production stands at about Rs 954 crore.

According to the figures provided by the state steel and mines minister, OMC produced 2.74 lakh tonnes of iron ore in 2002-03 from the Gandhamardhan block-B as against an approved capacity of 2.01 lakh tonnes. This mineral block is spread over 1590.86 hectares. In 2003-04, the production from the same block was 4.13 lakh tonnes compared to the IBM approved capacity of 2.5 lakh tonnes.

OMC also exceeded the approved production targets from this block in 2004-05 and 2007-08 while it fell short of the targeted production in 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2009-10.