In its endeavour to curb transport of illegally mined ore, the state steel and mines department has sought details of ore export from five ports in and around Orissa.
The ports are Haldia Port Trust in West Bengal, Vishakhapatnam Port Trust, Kakinada Port and Gangavaram Port in Andhra Pradesh and the Dhamra port in Orissa.
In a letter to these port authorities, Manoj Ahuja, steel & mines secretary, has called for submission of information related to ore exports to the state director of mines at least once every fortnight for verification of the data with the transit permits issued by the mining offices of the state.
Ahuja has pointed out that the decision to share information on ore exports by the ports was taken at a high level meeting convened by the Centre last year to streamline the movement of consignments by rail and road.
It may be noted that the Union Ministry of Shipping in 2010 had asked all major port trusts of India to adopt measures in line with the measures adopted by Paradip Port Trust (PPT) to check illegal export of iron ore.
Under the guidelines of the ministry, the ports must check that a plot holder or an allottee of iron ore is only authorized to move iron ore to the plot by road and rail and the railway authorities are informed accordingly.
Unauthorized transportation or shifting of iron ore inside the port is prohibited and in case of violation the allotment has to be cancelled. Iron ore received by rail in respect of a particular exporter is verified as per Railway Receipt (RR) and the cargo is unloaded only on verification of RR.
Similarly, the ore coming by road is verified with the transit pass (TP) and weighment challans and photo copies of the challans and the TPs are to be preserved by the port for subsequent correlation with the copies of royalty paid transit pass issued by the state mining offices.
In case of discrepancies in the weight of cargo as shown by the TPs and challans, the trucks should not be allowed to enter the port.
If the net weight of the iron ore carried by a truck exceeds the admissible weight to be carried by the particular vehicle, the port must inform the concerned state transport department for action against the erring vehicle for overloading.
