TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Only six mining lease holders and traders have submitted details on their mining activities during the last five years to the Directorate of Mines and Geology, even as the last date for submission of data ended Thursday.
The remaining lease holders and traders have sought time till August 30, department officials said. A total of around 118 lease holders and 49 traders were issued notices last month directing them to submit the details of their mining activity between 2007 and October 2012, by August 15.
This data has been asked by the department to enable it to undertake a comprehensive audit of lease holders.
and traders of mineral ore in the state. The details such as production, export, purchase of ore, domestic sale, iron ore storage rather than at mining site, opening and closing stock, clearances from Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), TC NO, etc are been demanded.
Assistant director Mines Parag Nagarcekar confirmed that only six lease holders and traders have submitted data, while the rest have sought additional time till August 30.
The department is in the process of empanelling a team of chartered accountants or individual chartered accountants for the exercise. Nagarcekar said that the process will be a realistic appraisal of what happened during the past five years, whether there were any lapses, any shortfall in collection of royalty and other issues.
The need to conduct the exercise became important after iron ore export touched 54 million metric tones for the financial year 2011-12, while the royalty was paid only for 47 million metric tonnes.
Justice M B Shah Commission pegged the loss of revenue to the government from the mining scam at Rs 34,000 crore.
