CBI must scrutinise all mining leases and renewals in Orissa: Cong

Congress MLA Naba Das today demanded a CBI probe to scrutinise all the original mining leases and their subsequent renewals by the Naveen Patnaik government in Orissa during the last one decade.

Talking to newspersons here, he said as many as 157 private firms had been awarded mining lease by the state government during the last eight years and most of them had no intention of undertaking any value addition inside the state.

He alleged that these private companies were allowed free trading of the valuable resources without contributing any thing to the state exchequer although the state government policy clearly stipulated that ''no value addition no mining lease''.

The Congress MLA said the government had started Vigilance inquiry into the multi-crore mining scam only to prevent further probe by the CBI as demanded by the Opposition political parties.

He alleged that the government had shown undue favour to a private firm by allowing it to go for illegal mining to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore and allotted a public mine worth over Rs 4,000 crore.

Public sector Orissa Mining Corporation(OMC) had handed over a large piece of government owned property to the private firm and allowed to extract minerals for four years without renewal of the mining lease, he also charged.

Mr Das said the illegal mining running into thousands of crores of rupees could only be unearthed by the CBI as the top political leaders in power, bureaucrats and the mine mafias had connived to loot the valuable resources. State Vigilance could not go into the deep of the conspiracy to expose the unholy nexus, he charged.

-- (UNI) -- 22CA33.xml

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