Raid on Rungta mines continues

The sleuths of state vigilance department today continued their raid on the iron ore and manganese mines owned by Rungta Mines Ltd in connection with the alleged illegal mining activities running into hundreds of crores.

This is the fifth property being investigated by the state vigilance after the mining scam broke out during the last assembly session in June.

Eleven teams consisting of officials of vigilance, mining and geology, commercial tax, revenue and transport departments took part in the raid on the company’s mines in Keonjhar district. The offices of the company at Joda and Barbil were also raided.

Sources said, large number of documents was seized during the raid on the company’s mines at Siljoda, Kalimati and Jajanga mines in the Joda circle.

Joint verification of the surface area of lease granted by the collector, amount of forest area in the mines allotted to the company and quantity of minerals raised were undertaken.

The illegal mining activities are reported to have deprived the state government of crores of rupees of revenue in terms of mining royalty and transport fees.

“The raids are continuing and we have seized volumes of documents from the company’s offices. However, we have not yet estimated the quantity of minerals involved”, Debadutta Patnaik, SP (vigilance) told Business Standard.

The state vigilance had earlier launched probe into suspected illegal mining activities in Arjun Lodha mines, B D Patnaik and Unchapbali mines in Keonjhar district and B K Das mines and B C Dagra mines in Mayurbhanj district.

Similarly, an administrative enquiry is now underway by the secretary, steel and mines, into the status of the mines owned by Ram Bahadur Thakur Ltd (RBTL) and the power of attorney issued by the company to the third party.

There were allegations of rampant illegal mining of iron and manganese ores in the mines held by RBTL at Rudukela and Katasahi in Keonjhar district which blew the lid on mining scam few months back.