Odisha High Court stayed revisional Authority proceedings on state’s mining resolutions

Bhubaneswar: The Hon’be Odisha High Court has stayed the proceedings at the revisional authority (previously Appellate Tribunal) under the Ministry of Mines against several policy decisions of the Odisha government on mining.

In its interim decision the court has stayed the proceedings at the authority till 2^nd of July and has allowed mining operations to continue.

The Government of Odisha has taken several policy decisions since last October for better regulation of the mining sector and to ensure raw material security of the state based industries.

These policy decisions include 50% reservation of raw material for the state based industries (which was further diluted on 15^th January), e-auction of minerals, emphasis on captive consumption of minerals (that miners can only raise minerals as per their captive need, renewal will be considered as per the captive consumption of the company), Reservation of surplus mineral resources for government (OMC).

The government has also constituted a three member ministerial for formulation of a suitable raw material linkage policy for the state based units.

However, none of the above decisions has been materialized so far.

The ministerial panel committee under the chairman ship of finance minister Prasanna Acharya had originally to submit its report by 31^st of January, but is yet to submit its report.

Similarly, the e-auction has already missed its April 1 deadline and no new date has been decided yet.

Some sources say this may be delayed till October.

On the other hand, the miners have gone to the revisional Authority against the decisions like 50% reservation and captive consumption of minerals.

In its initial observation, the authority has termed these decisions as illegal as per the MMDR act.

However, the state government has appealed before the Odisha High Court against the ruling of the revisional authority that since these are policy decisions of the state government taken by a principal secretary rank official, the authority headed by a joint secretary rank cannot alter it.

In its interim decision the high court has stayed the proceedings of the revisional Authority and has allowed mining operations to continue as usual till the next hearing on 2nd of July.