Act firmly to curb illegal mining, Centre tells State

Karnataka told not to just bank on ban of iron ore export

In a letter to Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, Union Minister for Mines B K Handique said: “I am a little surprised that the State government is seeking to ban exports in order to control illegal mining. It seems to be a sad reflection on the regulatory set up of the State, since the basic causes for illegal mining are not addressed.”

On Sunday, Yeddyurappa had said the Centre could help in curbing illegal mining by banning inter-state export of iron ore. Responding to this, Handique said production and regulation of trade and movement of ore were fully within the domain of the states.

According to Handique, rather than banning inter-state exports, addressing basic problems within the states with prompt ground-level action could help. “Experience in other states has shown that efficient auditing procedures to check sources of ore from mine to port would help to check illegal mining,” said the minister.

Listing out more steps to be taken at the state level to curb illegal mining, the minister
reminded the Chief Minister that despite repeated instruction to the State, it failed to implement many of the measures suggested by the Centre. One of the steps the Centre had asked the State to take was to computerise checking of movement of minerals by road and the use of secure permits.

The other was to set up coordination-cum-empowered committee against illegal mining, which the State established only recently. Also, it should have formed a special cell in the police department to curb illegal mining activities including preventing movement of vehicles carrying ore and accounting of the ore.

Reminding Karnataka about the new mining policy that aims to minimise exports and promote setting up of domestic value addition industries, Handique asked the Chief Minister clarify his stand on the 62 mining proposals received from the State for approval from the Centre.