Joda | Dec 29, 2015: A high-level Central team from the Ministry of Environment and Forests began visiting mining areas in Keonjhar district and inspected two mines of state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC). Though the team did not disclose the reason behind its visit, it is presumed that the visit has to do with the Stage-1 clearance of some mines sought by OMC.
Monday, the Central team led by assistant director general of forests Anil Kumar Singh inspected 1,590 hectares of Gandhamardana mine of OMC while the team visited Tiring hill mine spread over 79.3 hectares under Joda mining circle Tuesday.
The team comprised senior advisers of the Forest Advisory Committee to the Central government RK Dave and Dr Mohammed Foroz. They were accompanied by over a hundred officials of OMC and the district administration including managing director of OMC SN Girish, Keonjhar divisional forest officer Rohit Kumar Lenka, deputy director of Joda mining circle Sushant Kumar Nayak, Champua range officer Srirampad Arabinda Mishra, regional manager of Barbil zone of OMC Laxminarayan Ghana, senior geologist Dillip Kumar Patnaik, principal adviser (Forests) of the OMC PN Padhi during the visit.
However, the Central officials did not clarify the reason behind their visit. But reliable sources said OMC had applied to the MoEF for Stage-1 clearance of Tiring hill mine in 2010. The team went for a spot inspection of Tiring and Gandhamardan mines, they added. Their inspection covered full stock investigation, broken-up areas of the mines prior to 1980, latitude and longitude of the mines, lease pillars, safety zone and compensatory afforestation.
However, observers of the mine and industry sector were critical of such minute inspection of the state-owned mines.
They stated that private companies are easily getting necessary statutory clearances of the MoEF, while many mines of OMC are lying closed in Barbil zone due to lack of environmental and forest clearance.
(Source: http://www.orissapost.com/)