With a view to prevent illegal mining and loot of precious mineral resources as well as to usher in greater efficiency in the mining operations, the state government has decided to prepare maps of all the mining areas on the lines of revenue maps.
The maps so prepared would be scanned and thereafter digitized to enable the state steel and mines department to have records of the operations of all the miners in the state
The exercise which is set to kick off in July this year with the mining regions in Keonjhar district, is expected to be completed within three months. The entire work including survey of the mining areas and preparation of the mining maps is expected to be completed within three months.
The decision to prepare mining maps and go for digitization of record pertaining to the mining areas was taken at a high-level review meeting chaired by the state Chief Secretary in the presence of steel and mines secretary Manoj Ahuja.
Global Positioning System (GPS) would be used for mapping of the different mining areas in the state. The survey of the mining areas will be taken up by the concerned officials of the department of steel and mines as well as geology.
Besides, it has been decided to draw the boundaries of all the mining lease areas to ensure that a lessee cannot encroach the lease areas of other player. The mining maps and the digital records of the mining areas will also enable the state steel and mines department to know if a miner is illegally carrying out mining operations on forest land without the clearance of the Union ministry of environment and forests.
To check the transport of illegally mined ore, it has been decided to issue transit passes to the truckers. The transit pass will have all the information on the source of ore, the name of the miner and the destination to which the ore is carried.