Wrapping up their five day visit to the state, the two-member team of Justice MB Shah Commission of enquiry on Monday asked the state government for inclusion of the adjacent areas of mining leases while undertaking the physical verification of actual mining lease hold areas.
"We found that the teams are not capturing the adjacent areas of mines while undertaking the physical verification of actual lease hold areas. Those have to be captured as per the guidelines of the Commission," said Biswajit Mishra, team member of Shah Commission.
Mishra, who shared the anomalies with the state steel and mines secretary Rajesh Verma and other state government officials, said the encroachment area can be accessed only after differentiation is known.
Earlier in the day, the two members also checked the map generation procedure at the laboratory of Odisha Space Application Centre (ORSAC).
On May 25 and 26, the duo visited the Keonjhar and Sundergarh districts where they examined the demarcation work of mines in Joda and Koida circles.
The visiting investigators also checked whether the field verification is carried out in compliance with the panel's guidelines or not.
Admitting the anomalies raised by the members of the panel, Deepak Mohanty, Director mines, said, that they have found over burden dumping in the bordering areas of two mines, which was not covered during physical verification.
Mohanty said, all the five teams, engaged in physical verification, will be educated at a meeting on May 31 to capture the adjacent areas while doing physical verification.
It may be noted that following the directions of the Shah commission, the state government had constituted five teams- one each for three mining circles in Keonjhar district and two mining circles in Sundergarh district.
Meanwhile, physical verification of 29 mines have been completed by the state government.Fresh survey of mine leases was necessary after discrepancies were pointed out in mapping of lease boundaries. The miners held that the panel members superimposed Google images with the revenue map to determine lease area encroachment, which they claimed was not authentic. Similarly, the DGPS (differential global positioning system) map prepared by the state government agency ORSAC was also not up to the mark, the miners had argued.
