Penalty collection from Odisha miners touches ~112 billion

The compensation from Odisha’s iron ore and manganese miners reached ~112 billion as leaseholders of inoperative mines rushed to make payments after the recent Supreme Court stricture.

Last week, the apex court had directed the state government to pull out all stops to realise the dues. It even offered the government the option to scrap mining leases and confiscate assets of miners that did not comply.

“Some leaseholders such as Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha Ltd (Idcol) and Serajuddin & Co have made payments. Their mining operations were shut on January 1 after they failed to meet the December 31 deadline for payments. These leaseholders will now have to plead before the Supreme Court for restarting their operations,” said an Odisha government official.

Apart from operative mines, payments have been made by 30 leases of mines that were inoperative at the time of the court order. The future of such leases would depend on consequent court orders.

The apex court, in a case of rampant illegal mining in Odisha, had asked the state government to recover 100 per cent compensation for illegally raised iron and manganese ores. The court had pronounced its verdict on August 2, 2017. The cost of excess production was worked out at ~175.76 billion, based on the calculation of the Central Empowered Committee, a Supreme Courtappointed panel to investigate illegal mining.

For Idcol, the Supreme Court had already condoned the delay in payments. Mining operations at its Roida C mine are expected to resume soon, as the state government is in the process of passing suitable orders. Idcol faced a compensation burden of ~1.05 billion. Since the public sector undertaking was facing resource constraints, another state undertaking — Odisha Mining Corporation — had offered an inter-corporate loan of the same amount.

Last week, the Supreme Court had directed the state government to pull out all stops to realise the dues, and had offered the government the option to scrap leases of miners that did not comply