CEC hearing on mining rule violation begins

Shah panel report finds big miners like Tata Steel, Essel Mining operating in eco-sensitive zone

The Supreme Court appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) today started scrutiny of data and information available with mines lease holders regarding mineral output and other clearances and matched it with the government records.

“They are basically looking at whether the figures and information available with us matches with the government data. We said there was no discrepancies with the data provided by the state government about OMC,” said Saswat Mishra, chairman cum managing director of Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) after his presentation before CEC panel.

The probe panel, which is investigating status of illegal mining in Odisha, during their field visit to mining areas of Odisha last month, had found major discrepancies in data showed by mines leaseholders and state government regarding lease boundary and mineral extraction. Some of the lease holders also did not have any knowledge of official proceedings initiated against them for forest and environment rule violations. To clear the confusion, the CEC had asked for more data from State Pollution Control Board, Forest department, Vigilance wing and Steel and Mines department and wanted to hear from leaseholders regarding data mismatch.

The hearing process started today at New Delhi with cases of 21 leases belonging to OMC, seven leases of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and four leases of Orissa Mineral Development Corporation (OMDC). The probe panel asked about mineral output data and clearances available with the miners.

“We have provided all the data sought by the CEC. The production figures will be provided later,” said Alok Srivastav, executive director of SAIL.

The hearing and scrutinisation process will continue till August 12. In a separate development, three more volumes of enquiry report produced by Shah Commission was tabled in the Parliament today along with action taken report submitted by the Odisha government. In the report, the Commission has suggested that Rs 2 crore each should be collected from miners who have raised minerals in eco-sensitive zone beyond their lease area. Big miners like Tata Steel and Essel Mining have been named among the violators on this front.

Besides, in such cases where the area encroached by a lessee is more than 15 per cent of the area allotted to him offcially, the Commission has recommended cancellation of the lease. The panel has found 23 mines belonging to 14 miners guilty on this count.