State to renew mines under deemed extension

Bhubaneswar: In an effort to expedite the disposal of renewal of mine lease (RML) cases, the state steel and mines department in a recently held meeting sought detailed report from concerned collectors of the mining districts where applications are pending.

Currently as many as 46 expired mining leases are operating under the provision of deemed extension of which 17 and 12 leases are working under the above provision in Joda and Koira mining circle, respectively.

In the meeting the concerned district collectors have been asked to seek reports from teams involving forest, mining and revenue officials and the district level task force will send these observations to the Director of Mines and Steel & Mines Department within a month.

The department will however examine each case and process for further appropriate decision. The department aims to dispose all the above cases within three months time.

As 116 RML applications are pending with different collectors, they have been asked to submit reports within two months after seeking inputs from joint team and district level task force.

It may be noted that as many as 186 RML applications are pending at government level and 15 at Directorate level.