Mining data recast not to affect Rs 59k cr excess output penalty

A mammoth exercise conducted by the Odisha government recently to revise iron ore output data of 187 miners for a period of 10 years starting 2000-01 will not have any impact on the Rs 59,000 crore penalty order issued for excess production, officials said.

The miners, however, can appeal for revision of penalty based on revised figures at the time of hearing at courts, they added. "The demand notice issued in excess mining cases remain valid and this reconciliation (of output data) is not going to affect the order. The revised data though can be quoted at the time of hearing," said Deepak Mohanty, director of mines with the state government. In November 2012, the state government had fined 104 iron and manganese ore mine lease holders for extracting minerals beyond approved quantity and asked them to pay the market price for the excess production. The recovery notice, sent to top steelmakers such as Tata Steel, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), and state-run Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) amounted to Rs 59,000 crore.
 

Nearly all the miners have gone to the Revision Authority under Union mines ministry challenging the order and have obtained stay order over the penalty notice.

The penalty notice quoted mineral output figures provided by joint verification of a team comprising officials from state steel and mines department, forest and environment department, Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) and Odisha State Pollution Control Board.

However, during a hearing by the Supreme Court-appointed central empowered committee(CEC) earlier this month, the miners complained that the figures presented by the state government do not match with records available with IBM and hence demanded a revision of the data.

The revised figure, however, is not significantly different from the previous figures, government officials said.

"There were some clerical errors regarding output data like 50,000 tonne was quoted as 500,000 tonne. But barring a few such cases, the total output figure is not significantly different from the output data quoted for excess output penalty," said an official involved in the data revising process in the government.

The state government has already sent its revised data to CEC, which will submit its report on the status of illegal mining in Odisha to the Supreme Court in a couple of weeks.