Joda: The Mines department has woken up from its slumber with its state level enforcement checking seized minerals that were lying at different rail sidings in Keonjhar.
Orrisa Post had carried a report September 7 about the seized minerals. The checking of the seized minerals started from September 8.
Head of the squad Dillip Kumar Sahu said that the rail sidings at Bansapani, Jurudi, Nayagad, Bolani, Barbil and Deojhar have been checked in the past four days.
The squad found that the seized minerals have been overrun with creepers and bushes, but not stolen.
When asked about the value of the seized mineral in the area, Sahu said that it can be assessed only after the checking.
Deputy director of mines Sushant Kumar Nayak said that seized minerals can be sold off by the Odisha Mining Corporation through auction mode.
It may noted here that a few years ago, when the multi-crore mining scam in the Joda mining circle came to the fore, the state government had investigated the mining irregularities since 2006.
Between 2006 and 2008, over 400 persons involved in mining plunder had been arrested while police and the mining department had seized lakhs of tonnes of illegally extracted iron ore in Bansapani, Jurudi, Nayagad, Deojhar, Barbil, Bolani rail sidings.
Justice MB Shah Commission and the Supreme Court-monitored Central Empowered Committee had investigated the mining scam. However, before that, the Mines department had seized huge amount of illegally extracted ore in different rail sidings. Some amount of seized minerals had been auctioned through state-owned OMC.
Lakhs of tonnes of seized ore worth crores of rupees have still been left near the rail sidings and on private lands. And some amount is under custody of some leaseholders.
Nearly, 45000 tonnes of ore were left at Jurudi rail siding while over 60,000 tonnes at Basapani rail siding. From the seized ore, some amount has allegedly been stolen in different times.
At that time, when 30080 tonnes of ore was at Bansapani rail siding; 67811 tonnes at Jurudi rail siding and 56300 tonnes at Barbil rail siding. The OMC had auctioned some ore mode while some amount was stolen.
Now, the tonnes of seized ore have been rotting for lack of proper upkeep. The misuse of seized minerals also came to the fore recently when tonnes of iron ore were found dumped near Bansapani overbridge to level a road.