Bhubaneswar: The two member team of shah commission of enquiry has pointed out some discrepancies in the mines area boundaries and has asked the state government for inclusion of the adjacent areas of mining leases while undertaking the physical verification of actual mining lease hold areas.
The two members – conservator of forests in Karnataka Biswajeet Mishra and senior geologist Janardan Prasad Monday met state steel and mines secretary Rajesh Varma and other senior government officials and shared their observations on the field verification.
“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,” Mr. Mishra said after the meeting.
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.
Admitting the anomalies raised by the members of the panel, Deepak Mohanty, Director of mines, who had accompanied the team during the field visit said, that the team 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 the Department of Steel & Mines (DoSM) has constituted five teams to go in for physical verification of these mines and subsequently physical verification of 29 mines have been completed so far.
By Tapan Moharana
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