Odisha to submit physical verification report with Shah Panel

Odisha government was all set to submit soon, the physical verification report of 42 iron ore and manganese mines located in Keonjhar and Sundargarh districts, to the Justice M B Shah Commission.
The report to be sent by the state government is likely to be part of the Shah Commission's final report on illegal mining activities in Odisha.
The commission has already submitted its first report on illegal mining in the state to the Ministry of Mines which is likely to present the report in Parliament after getting the final report, official sources said.
The commission had allowed fresh physical verification of 42 mines whose owners refused to go by the boundary map prepared by the state government basing on the Goggle earth map. The mines owners alleged that boundary maps do not match with the actual mining area as they were prepared on a wrong basis, said director of mines Deepak Mohanty.

As per the directive of the Commission, the state government later set up five committees for physical verification of boundaries of mines.
The Commission had also asked the government to cover adjacent areas of leased mines while undertaking physical verification. On the basis of physical verification report, the government has prepared fresh maps at the laboratory of the Odisha Remote Sensing Application Centre, Mohanty said.