Shah panel to hear lessees from today

A six member team of Shah Commission, enquiring into illegal mining activities in Goa and Odisha, arrived here on Tuesday. The commission will hear views of the mine owners during this round of visit to the state.

"We will be hearing the lessees during the visit that will continue for about 3-4 days. Those lessees whose documents were examined during the last visit have been asked to appear before the panel," said U V Singh, additional principal conservator of forests, Karnataka and member of the Commission.

However, he did not give any specific date for finalisation of the report.

Asked about the petition filed by a body of mine operators at Delhi High Court seeking quashing of inquiry proceedings by the Shah Commission into mining operations in Odisha, he said, "We don't have knowledge regarding it."

He refused to comment on the allegations of raising of ore by the mine owners beyond their leasehold area.

The hearing of miners by the Commission will take place from Wednesday after Justice M B Shah reaches here with two other officials.

The main issue likely to dominate the three-day visit of the Commission is anomalies in the lease area boundary map, which has become the primary source of illegal mining activities in the state.

The Commission has already pointed out that the mines lease maps provided by the state government and prepared using differential global positioning system (DGPS) do not match and hence, there was delay in determining the nature of violation by the miners.

On the complaint against the state government for non-submission of information, Singh said, "they have shared the information with us and only some trivial informations are awaited."

Officials in the mining department are not sure how long the hearings will continue. "So far March 2 has been fixed as the last date of the hearing, if possible it may continue further," said an official in the know.

Before its visit, the panel had asked 186 iron ore and manganese miners of the state to submit data regarding status of their leases, clearances, mineral sales and raising of ore. They were asked to submit their views regarding data provided by the state government and Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM).

On behalf of the miners, Supreme Court advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi will present his views before Justice Shah.

Several mines owners had approached the Commission to give them a hearing before finalisation of the report. East Zone Miners' Association (EZMA) and Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) had expressed fear that the Commission report will be one-sided as their views had not been taken into consideration.