BHUBANESWAR: Even as Rungta Mines figured prominently in the illegal mining activities, the State Vigilance probing the multi-crore mining scam is yet to submit chargesheet against the company and the mining officers involved in the scam. The Bhubaneswar Vigilance cell registered a case against five government officers, including deputy director of mines Purna Chandra Patra in the Balasore Vigilance police station on November 18, 2009 alleging that the five officers had entered into criminal conspiracy with Nandalal Rungta and partners for granting iron ore mining lease in forest land. Rungta is one of the mines which was raided after the mining scam surfaced. Meanwhile, the State Vigilance have submitted chargesheet against Ram Bahadur Thakur Limited , Arjun Ladha, BD Patnaik Mines, Indrani Patnaik Mines and a few others but not against Rungta mines even after two years of registering a case. Incidentally, Patra who is now heading a six-member official-level committee to probe the alleged violation of Section-37 of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960, was the then deputy director of mines (DDM), Joda. The Vigilance probe into illegal mining of Mangilal Rungta in Silijoda and Kalimati mines revealed that the Government received an application from the company on December 1, 1994 for renewal of the mining lease for a period of 20 years with effect from January 1, 1996. The Government asked the company to submit compliance fulfilling the terms and conditions for renewal of the lease by February 10, 1999. Curiously, mining lease was renewed by the Steel and Mines Department on January 21, 1999 before receipt of the compliance. The company was given mining lease over 715.639 hectares on January 1, 1946. Of the total area, 146.746 hectares was forest land, 524.80 hectares non-forest land and 44 hectares was classified as tenant land. After enforcement of the district-level committee (DLC) recommendations, an area of 313 hectares out of the non-forest area of 568.893 hectares came under forest land. Of the forest area, 206 hectares were split and the remaining 107.05 hectares were virgin. Although mining lease was granted for extraction of manganese ore only, the company applied for inclusion of iron ore in the lease deed on April 9, 2001. Patra, the then DDM, Joda, recommended on April 30, 2001 for inclusion of iron ore saying no de-reservation of forest plan (DRP) was required as the area was split before 1980. Objecting to his recommendation, the then joint director of mines sought clarification from Patra. Ignoring the objection raised by the joint director of mines, Sasadhar Sahoo, the then director of mines included iron ore in the lease deed vide an office order dated Sept 27, 2002. The company extracted iron ore of over 2.64 lakh tones from 2003 to 2009 and despatched 2.61 lakh tonnes. The approximate cost of the iron ore despatched illegally was about ` 57.61 crore. Even though extraction of iron ore from the broken land required DRP clearance, Bikram Singh, the then divisional forest officer, did not object to the mining operation in the broken areas. This illegal mining continued even during the stint of Manas Ranjan Mohanty and Madan Mohan Biswal who were posted there as DDM.
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