State to probe sub-lease and transfer of mines

The state steel and mines department will soon launch a departmental enquiry into cases of sub-lease, transfer and mortgage of mines by the lease holders.

The transfer and sub-lease of mines are believed to be the factors abetting illegal mining activities and the state government, which is already in the line of fire of the Opposition political parties over the issue, is now aiming to tighten the noose on miners involved in such activities.

“Some miners in the state are transferring and sub-letting mines without the prior approval of the state government which is required under the Mineral Concession Rules of 1960. The steel and mines department will soon launch a departmental enquiry into such cases. Our objective is to ensure that there is no violation of Mineral Concession Rules”, a highly placed official source told Business Standard.

In the aftermath of the illegal mining scam in the state, the state government had cancelled the mining lease of Ram Bahadur Thakur Ltd while the administrative enquiry was underway for Arjun Ladha and B C Dev Mines.

These three mining firms were allegedly carrying out illegal mining operations on reserved forest land without the requisite clearance of the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF).

Meanwhile, the State Vigilance had recently recommended the cancellation of mining leases of S N Das Mohapatra and Indani Pattnaik Mines.

The Orissa government is set to launch a joint crackdown along with the Jharkhand government soon on the illegal mining operations allegedly carried out in the two states.

An inter-state coordination committee consisting of the top officials of the two state governments would be constituted soon to oversee the implementation of the mining operations.

The state government has seized around four lakh tonnes of illegally mined minerals including iron ore, manganese and bauxite from the Joda-Barbil and Koira regions of Keonjhar district from April 2009 to May 2010.

As many as 384 illegal activities have been detected in the said period which includes 292 activities in the Joda-barbil belt and 92 activities in the Koira region.

The value of these seized minerals has been estimated at Rs 17.65 crore.

As many as 222 vehicles involved in illegal mining activities have been seized.

The state government has realized Rs 6.91 crore from the seizure operations which includes the penalty imposed on illegally mined ores and the cost realized from the disposal of confiscated ores and minerals.

Of the total value of the seized minerals of Rs 17.65 crore, minerals worth Rs 16.68 crore have been seized from the Joda-Barbil belt while the balance Rs 96.43 lakh from the Koira region.

The seizure operations include 3.63 lakh tonnes of iron ore, 6879 tonnes of manganese and 270 tonnes of bauxite.

More than 75 per cent of the minerals have been seized from the Joda-Barbil belt.

The state steel and mines department has also filed its response to the interim report of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court of India on the illegal mining scam in Orissa.