Half of Odisha’s iron ore mines lack clearance: Shah Commission

• According to the Justice M.B. Shah Commission report on illegal iron and manganese ore mining – 94 of the 192 iron ore mining leases in Odisha do not have the mandatory environmental clearances. And of the 96 that did have them, 75 have mined far beyond their permitted levels over the past several years.
• The report reveals that, how the mines have continued to use a loophole in the law for years and atrociously violated environmental and other norms to pump out iron at a time when international prices of the metal are booming.
• The mining leases operated close to wildlife areas without adequate protection to wildlife. The mandatory forest clearances had not been obtained in several cases. Water bodies in and around the mines had been polluted. Water had depleted in natural streams in some cases and forestlands impacted adversely in several.
• A mining project within 10 kilometre vicinity of a protected wildlife area requires mandatory clearance from the National Board of Wildlife, which too was not obtained in several cases.
• According to the Shah Commission both the Central government authorities and the Odisha government were responsible for the blatant and wide-ranging illegal mining that have continued unchecked for years. It has recommended that the entire extraction in all cases where leases operated without mandatory environmental clearances be treated as illegal and the market value domestic or export recovered from defaulting miners.