21 mines asked to stall operations

 In May this year, the Forest Bench of the Supreme Court had ordered fresh survey of 99 mining leases in Bellary (mentioned in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining) by a joint committee comprising representatives of Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC), Karnataka Lokayukta and the departments of Forests, Mines and Geology.

The committee has so far completed survey on 24 mining leases and submitted its report to the government.

Of these, 21 mining leases were found to have violated rules and indulged in illegal mining.  The committee has recommended immediate stalling of operations in these mining leases. Three mining leases have been given the benefit of doubt, sources in the Mines and Geology Department said.

The apex court had ordered the joint survey while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) by the Samaja Parivartana Samudaya in the Supreme Court against illegal mining in Bellary district. The matter is coming up for hearing before the Supreme Court on Friday.

The government is likely to submit an affidavit on the action initiated before the court. The orders to stall the mining operations in 21 leases were issued by Mines and Geology Department Director H R Srinivasa and the same was conveyed to the Bellary Deputy Commissioner on Monday.

Allam Prashanth Mines Company, Tiffan Beretis Mining Company and Nadim Minerals have been given the go ahead to continue mining. The committee felt there had been no major mining violations by these three companies.

The mining leases that have been ordered to stall operations include S B Minerals owned by Hospet MLA Anand Singh, Tungabhadra Minerals, BMS Mining Company, Nidhi Minerals, B R Yogendranath Mining Company, Jeenath Minerals, KLD Mining Company, Lakshmi Minerals among others.

The committee will take up survey of the remaining 75 mining leases soon.