BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government rejected the Opposition demand for a CBI probe into the multi-crore mining scam saying that the Vigilance is doing an excellent job, the anti-corruption wing is under public glare for allegedly not taking any perceptible action against the mine owners indulged in illegal mining.While an impression has been created by the Government that it has stopped illegal mining activities, mining operations are in full swing in some of the mines which were raided by the Vigilance which detected serious irregularities.The Mangilal Rungta Mines in Silijoda-Kalimati under Joda mining circle in Keonjhar district is a pointer. The company is still extracting iron ore from the area which was originally leased out for mining manganese. The company allegedly managed to obtain permission from the Government for mining iron ore in a fraudulent manner. This came to the notice of the special cell of the Vigilance probing the illegal mining activities of the company.The Vigilance cell registered a case in the Balasore Vigilance police station in November 2009 against five Government officers for illegally granting mining lease to Nandalal Rungta and others of ML Rungta Mines for extraction of iron ore.In its FIR, the Vigilance cell alleged that the company had violated the Forest (Conservation) Act, the Environment (Protection) Act and the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Protection) Act and several other mining rules while extracting iron ore from forest areas without approval of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.The anti-graft wing named five officers __ former director of mines Sasadhar Sahoo, deputy directors of mines P C Patra, Manas Ranjan Mohanty, Madan Mohan Biswal and former DFO Bikram Singh __ who allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with Nandalal Rungta and others to grant iron ore mining lease by manipulating and fabricating documents and allowing the company to carry on mining activities in the forest areas.Originally, the company was given mining lease over 715.639 hectares in village Silijoda-Kalimati under Champua sub-division for extraction of manganese. However, the company was granted permission for extraction of iron ore over 115.639 hectares out of the lease area by the Government on September 27, 2002.A supplementary deed for inclusion of iron ore as second mineral was executed between the Keonjhar district collector and Nandalal Rungta on September 27, 2003. The company extracted over 2.61 lakh tonnes of iron ore having 65 per cent iron content from 2003 to 2009. The estimated cost of the ore in 2009 was over Rs 57 crore.What is more galling is that these violations were not detected during joint physical verification of the mining areas of ML Rungta by a team of officers from the Directorates of Mines and Geology, Revenue and Forest Departments just a month before the case was registered by the Vigilance.
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