BHUBANESWAR: Orissa Gana Parishad president Bijay Mohapatra on Saturday strongly opposed the State Government's decision to recommend to the Centre granting prospecting licence to POSCO-India for the Khandadhar iron ore mines in Keonjhar district of the State.

At a press conference here, Mr. Mohapatra criticised the government for cancelling the prospecting licence earlier granted to Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited, a Central Government enterprise, to give the same to POSCO. Kudremukh has since written to the authorities raising objections to the government's decision.

The OGP leader said that withdrawing the Khandadhar mines from a public sector company to allot the same to a foreign company was against the interests of the State. "Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seems to be in a hurry to protect the interests of private companies than public sector enterprises," he said. He demanded that the government review its decision. Strongly opposing the government's move to hand over mines of iron ore and other minerals to different private companies, Mr. Mohapatra said that the Chief Minister should stop recommending grant of mining leases to private companies and instead hand over the mines to the State-run Orissa Mining Corporation.

The OMC should have control over the mines of all mineral resources and the companies setting up various industries should purchase different ore from it, Mr. Mohaptra said. Referring to a recent Supreme Court order pertaining to a chromite mine that such leases should be kept with State-run corporations than private companies, Mr. Mohapatra said that they were studying the judgement. "If needed, we will approach the Apex court seeking cancellation of the mining leases granted to various private companies in the State," he said.

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