Joda: It is known, granite stones are being illegally mined from the Kandara Mine No. 2 under Joda block and Barbil tehsil area of Keonjhar district. Nearly two lakh cubic metres of granite, worth Rs 20 crore, has been illegally mined in the past 8 months.
Acting upon the allegation, Chamakpur Revenue Inspector Bhadra Naik, an Amin and supervisor of Barbil tehsil office had together reached the site Saturday and started investigations.
According to sources, the state government had leased out Kandara granite mine No 1 (Plot No 127/28) and No 2 (Plot No 134/35) to Odisha Construction Corporation Limited (OCCL) from 2011 to 2015 for the Kanapur dam project works.
At that time, the two granite mines were being given to OCCL on the basis of annual lease. This practice had continued till 2015 and after the approval of mining plan and other statutory requisites, these two mines were given to OCCL until 2020.
However, the said company could not excavate granite from the two allocated mines due to its slow pace of work. According to OCCL sources, the company has deposited only Rs 430,000 at Barbil tehsil towards royalty for the aforesaid mines.
In this connection, Barbil tehsildar had a meeting with the OCCL manager at Champua sub-collector’s office in August 2018 and requested him to leave the mine No 2 as it is larger in capacity than the other one.
Moreover, the OCCL authorities were not given any official letter in this regard by Barbil tehsil office and the local administration had given the Kandara granite mine No 2 temporarily to an organisation named M/s. Montecarlo, which was working at the NH-520, for three months.
Surprisingly, M/s. Montecarlo has been illegally mining granite from Kandara granite mine No.1 instead of No. 2, for past 8 months.
This was brought to the knowledge of Barbil tehsildar and Champua sub-collector by the OCCL senior manager Niranjan Mishra on 10th July, seeking stringent action against the wrongdoer. However, the views of M/s. Monte Carlo could not be obtained.
PNN