Mineral excavation, transportation and export business has come to a screeching halt in the state ahead of the visit of national level illegal mining probe panel M B Shah Commission to the state on December 7.
“In the last month, the state has not issued a single transit pass for transportation of minerals for export purpose. Since 99 per cent miners did not apply for transport permission, our applications for transit pass were not accepted,” said P K Nayak, president of Odisha Mineral Traders Association (OMTA), an organisation of mineral carrying truck owners. People associated with mineral trading and export business suspect that the state government has informally instructed all the miners not to raise minerals at their sites as it is concerned over rampant and frequent cases of violation of mining, forest and environmental laws.
“November was a dull month for iron ore export business as we got very little orders from exporters due to limited raising. In November, iron ore export through Paradip was about 200,000 tonne, lowest in past four-five years,” K C Pandav, manager at L M Hati & Co said, a leading shipping agent based at Paradip.
However, the miners and raising contractors were tight lipped about the halting of operations, while government officials denied giving any such instructions.
“There was no such instruction from the government formally or informally to miners about halting operations. If a miner is panicked about impending visit of Shah Commission, then he might have stopped operations,” said Subhendu K Das, director of mines with Government of Odisha.
As mandated by the Government of India, the members of M B Shah Commission are expected to visit various mines in the state during their short stay and will scrutinise the process and practices of several miners.
Meanwhile, the state government has taken a series of measures to show its preparedness to the Shah Commission. In past three weeks, the government has ordered the steel and mines office to investigate irregularities caused by a privet miner, sent show cause notices to 57 mines including several government entity-owned mines for violation of mining and other statutory laws, implemented online registration of ore carrying vehicles and has raided several mines and crushing units over alleged forest rule violations.
