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Government put on the mat

Special Correspondent

Mineral wealth being handed over to private parties, says Opposition

BHUBANESWAR: The Opposition legislators virtually put Naveen Patnaik Government on the mat in the State Assembly on Monday by alleging that it was out to hand over Orissa’s rich mineral wealth to private companies in the name of industrialisation and development.

The Government was recommending the cases of different companies for grant of mining lease in their favour in violation of its own rules, they alleged. The companies had arrived in Orissa with the intention to take possession of the State’s mineral reserves than to set up steel plants, they observed.

Taking part in the discussion on an adjournment motion moved by Congress member Umesh Swain and others, the Opposition questioned the Government’s actions in recommending the mineral concession applications of various companies despite the fact that many companies had not fulfilled different norms.

Opposition Chief Whip Satyabhushan Sahu and other members demanded that a House Committee of the Assembly be formed to look into the alleged irregularities committed in sending the recommendations.

Although they welcomed the decision to engage expert agencies such as Mecon and Engineers India Limited to verify which of the companies had fulfilled the conditions to be eligible to apply for mineral concession, they questioned the recommendation of five cases on the basis of the verification done by its own agency IPICOL.

They alleged that the application of POSCO had been recommended to the Centre when it had not acquired even an inch of land at its proposed project site.

Several senior legislators of the ruling Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance also said that an expert committee should verify the applications of the companies before they were sent to the Centre. Dissatisfied over the reply of State Steel and Mines Minister Padmanabha Behera to the queries raised by them, the Opposition legislators staged a walkout bringing an end to the whole discussion.

In his reply, Mr. Behera said as many as 16 of 46 companies that had signed memoranda of understanding with the State government had become eligible for seeking mineral concessions.

He said that out of the 16 companies, the applications of six had been forwarded to the Centre for and three of these had been approved by the Centre. The mineral concession applications of POSCO-India, Action Steel Limited and SMC Power and Steel were pending with the Centre.

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