Odisha: Field verification of 35 mines from March 16

Bhubaneswar: After the controversy over the differential global
positioning system (DGPS) map for detecting the mines areas during the Shah
Commission visit, the Odisha government has decided to start field verification
of the boundaries 35 mines from 16^th of this month.

During the visit of the enquiry panel from February 27 to March 4^th
miners had raised questions over the credibility of the DGPS map and the panel
had agreed for field verification of 35 mines excluding 5 mines of OMC.

For
this the panel has constituted 5 separate teams and in addition the state
government has also constituted two separate committees headed by the
collectors of Sundargarh and Keonjhar.

According to sources, the department of mines will train these
teams on 14^th of this month and form 16^th the process of
field verification will start.

For the field verification the commission has
issued a 10-point directive to the department of mines.

As per the directive, if
the lease holder violated the original mining plan within the lease area it
would be regarded as encroachment of mining area and the same would be
identified in the map as encroachment.

Experts say, this specific directive
might bring more headaches for the miners.