Aiming to expedite disposal of applications for renewal of mining leases, the steel & mines department has rejected 135 such applications of a total of 323 applicants.
"We have already rejected 135 applications for mine lease renewal. These applications did not merit renewal as they lacked the necessary statutory clearances. The department is making all efforts to dispose off pending applications in accordance with the directive of the Odisha High Court”, said an official source.
On mines operating under deemed extension, the official said, “We will allow these mines to continue operations so long as they have the clearances.”
The list of mines operating under deemed extension includes Tata Steel, Ferro Alloys Corporation Ltd (FACOR), Essel Mining & Industries Ltd Mid-East Integrated Steel, Patnaik Minerals Ltd, R P Sao, Rungta Mines and OCL India among others.
Lessees whose mining lease renewal cases have already been rejected include Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys-IMFA, B C Sahu, Basudev Pradhan, K K Das, K K Agrawal, Keonjhar Minerals Ltd, Pravash Chandra Agrawal, B K Mohanty, R C Das, Neelachal Refractories, P R Jain, Pratap Chandra Mohanty, Prabir Ghose, Jyoti Parmanik, D M Minerals and Shah Refractories to name a few.
It may be noted that the Odisha High Court had recently directed the state government to dispose all pending applications for mine lease renewal within three months.In October last year, the steel & mines department through a notification, had formed an inter-departmental panel headed by development commissioner cum additional chief secretary.
Other members of the committee include secretaries of steel and mines, forest and environment and revenue & disaster management departments, principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), director of environment, director of mines, director of geology, chief executive officer of Odisha Remote Sensing Application Centre and member-secretary of the Odisha State Pollution Control Board.
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The notification stated that proposals for renewal of mining leases shall be put up by the steel and mines department along with the recommendation of the committee before the state government for the final approval or recommendation to the Central government, as the case may be, under the provision of MMDR Act-1957 and Mineral Concession Rules-1960, or otherwise.
This committee will prepare a checklist of all 323 applicants.The checklist which will contain details of statutory clearances of each of the applicants will help the panel to expedite disposal of their cases. It is also expected to ease the process of approving or rejecting an application for renewal.
The committee while taking a decision on renewal, will go by provisions of Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) MMDR Act-1957, statutory clearances obtained by the lessees and the recent notifications as well as resolutions issued by the steel & mines department to judge the merit of the cases.