BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has executed lease deed in favour of 16 out of the 60
applications pending before it for a fresh mining lease (ML).
Those applicants who could not make it because of delay in obtaining statutory clearances have moved the Odisha High Court seeking a direction to the State Government for reconsideration of their cases.
Informed sources said that 18 applications for grant of mining lease were taken up for consideration by the Steel and Mines department and all of them were approved. However, two applicants did not turn up before the stipulated date of January 11, 2017.
Prominent firms which executed lease deed include Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited, Prakash Industries, Sree Metaliks Limited, K C Pradhan, Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), Pradhan Industries, B K Bansal, Manikeswari Minerals and National Enterprises.
Those who have gone to the High Court have contended that getting statutory clearances from competent authorities are beyond their control. Since they have no faults, the state government should be directed to reconsider their applications.
The amended Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 2015 which stipulated that all mining licences for major minerals be granted through auctions, had a saving clause under Section 10A(2)(C), giving a reprieve to those mining lease (ML) applications approved by the Centre or in favour of which the state governments concerned had issued letters of intent before the new Act.
The 60 applications for fresh mining lease (ML) were saved under Section 10A(2)(C) of MMDR Act, 2015.
Union Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar during his November 2016 visit to the state had reviewed the progress of ML approval of the pending applications and had requested the Chief Secretary A P Padhi to expedite the lease deed execution for which either Central government approvals were granted or letter of
intent (LoI) was issued by the State government.
As per the amended MMDR Act, applications for grant of mining lease would lapse suo motu if the state government failed to execute lease deed in favour of the project proponents before January 11, 2017.
Operation of new mines are necessary in view of the increasing demands of raw materials from the metal industries. Auction of mines takes more time to operationalise the mines because of the delay in getting clearances from the Ministry of Mines and Ministry of Environment and Forest, the sources said.