Patnaik called for personal hearing

Taking serious note of the violation of Rule-37 under Mineral Concession (MC) Rules-1960, the state steel & mines department has called Indrani Patnaik for personal hearing on February 22.

Patnaik is in the dock for violation of Rule-37 by entering into an unholy alliance with raising contractor Thriveni Earthmovers her mines in the Joda mining circle of Keonjhar district. Earlier, the department had issued showcause notice to the company over this violation.

Ahead of the personal hearing, the department has asked the mine lessee to submit documents relating to persons employed since inception of mining activities including executive and non-executive staff and the agent/ organization which has made the appointments supported by documentary evidence.

This apart, the lessee is required to furnish its ledger accounts and documents pertaining to correspondence made for sale of iron ore to consumers.

Besides Indrani Patnaik, the steel & mines department had also served notices on two other lessees, K J S Ahluwalia and R P Sao.

Five more lessees — Sarada Mines (Barbil), Aryan Mines (Koira), Mala Ray mines (Keonjhar), Kabita Agrawal (Koira) and Mideast Integrated Steel's (Mesco) Barbil mines — are in the dock for the same violation.

The alleged nexus between the mine lessees and raising contractor Thriveni Earthmovers in the Joda mining circle in Koenjhar district had snowballed into a major issue with the MLAs of the Opposition Congress as well as the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) urging the Chief Minister to initiate stringent action against the miners as well as the contractor.

Two Congress legislators and six lawmakers of the ruling party had written to the Chief Minister in this connection.

These legislators had alleged that the mining mafia led by defeated MLA candidate Sanatana Mahakud in collusion with Triveni Earthmovers had forcibly taken control of ten mines in the Joda circle using their muscle power.

Thriveni Earthmovers, had, however, trashed these allegations.

“We are only the raising contractor for some lessees. Our company has nothing to do with their financial transactions or sales of ore by the miners,” B Prabhakaran, managing director, Thriveni Earthmovers had told Business Standard. He had also denied any link with Mahakud.

The state government had appointed 16 chartered accountants to detect cases of alleged violations of Rule-37 of Mineral Concession Rules- 1960.

These chartered accountants were appointed to conduct preliminary verification of balance sheet, audited accounts, tax audit report, IT and VAT (Value Added Tax) returns) as well as related documents of the mines.

Earlier, the state government had constituted a six-member committee to carry out an investigative study of the financial transaction of the lesses and the raising contractors.