While the Odisha government has started processing the lease renewal applications of hundreds of mines, the Check list sought from the applicant miners is expected to be a major barrier for renewal.
As per reports, there are pending applications for renewal of 53 working mines and 275 closed mines and the state government has accelerated the process for disposal of the applications after the Odisha high court order. However, the check list, the miners have asked to submit, is being seen as a major barrier for renewal of the mines.
The major difficulty is to transfer the tribal lands to the non-tribal ownership. As per the Odisha Regulation-2, 1956 transfer of land under tribal ownership to non-tribal ownership is no strictly prohibited. Previously this regulation was not applicable to the land in the mines area. Similarly, restriction in conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural land is another major obstacle. For renewal of lease fulfillment of these two conditions are necessary.
Apart from these two there are a host of conditions have been included in the check list like Forest Clearance, Environment clearance (that the said mines area is free from air and water pollution), IBM approved mining plan etc. As per sources the government will proceed for renewal after getting all these clearances. As it may take years for the miners to comply these conditions, experts say a good number of applications might be rejected.
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