BHUBANESWAR | Oct 13, 2017: THE State Government on Thursday directed the Steel and Mines Department to integrate i3MS (Integrated Mines and Mineral Management System) for monitoring projects under District Mineral Fund (DMF).“Integration of i3MS with DMF would further enhance the scope of the software and provide online dashboard monitoring of DMF utilisation, list of projects undertaken and their progress,” Director of Mines Deepak Mohanty said after a high-level meeting.

Considered one of the best IT intervention in management of mines and minerals in the country, i3MS was implemented in 2012 with the objective of bringing in transparency and effectiveness in mineral administration by minimising the possibility of illegal mining and unauthorised transport of minerals.

Reviewing the performance of the IT application, Chief Secretary AP Padhi directed the Planning and Coordination Department to monitor the DMF projects through this software. A technical committee was formed to work out the scope of this integration.

The i3MS project, which was estimated to cost around `155 crore over a period of 5 years from 2012, was planned on a self sustaining mode with the introduction of only `1 user fee for one tonne of mineral. Considering the present trend of mineral transaction, `35 crore was expected to be collected as user fee each year, Mohanty said.

After realising the effectiveness of IT solution, the Central Coordination-cum-Empowered Committee of Ministry of Mines have recommended all States to adopt i3MS for better mineral administration.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have developed their systems in line with i3MS.

The States of Punjab and Bihar are also in contact with Odisha for development of the same and have agreed to pay `50 lakh each for source code of i3MS, he added.Odisha is the first State in the country to introduce GPS tracking of mineral transportation. More than 40,000 vehicles have already been fixed with the GPS device.

(Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/)