Shah Panel favours physical verification of mine area

KOLKATA: With the Shah Commission which is probing into illegal mining in the country, now allowing physical verification of mines lease boundaries, the lessees who have faced penalties for alleged encroachments now hope for justice.

“Yes, we have allowed physical verification of lease area of some mines of lessees who have raised question on the DGPS map,” Justice M.B. Shah, chairman of the Commission, told reporters here last evening.

Physical verification of mines area would be allowed wherever necessary, he added.

He also indicated that a team of the Commission could visit certain mines area where the allegations of illegal mining activities have been reported.
The mining firms, while making submissions before the Shah Commissions through their lawyers, argued Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) map prepared by the state government using the Google Earth image and based on figures of the base map prepared manually way back in the 1960s, was not accurate.

They appealed the Commission to direct the government to consider those methods as references. Mining exports have also supported the contention of the mines owners against the application of DGPS map to detect illegalities.

“The earlier lease maps were based on village settlement maps which were surveyed with plain compass and chain. Subsequently, the areas were surveyed by theodolite. And there is further development on the technique by using Total Station (TS) which is a computerized optical theodolite. In my view, this is best technique for delineating areas granted PL/ML. Now to adopt DGPS by superimposing on the cadastral maps will certainly lead to variation,” former director of mines, B.K. Mohanty on Thursday told “The ET”.

The DGPS map has its limitation as it depends on signals from the satellite. “Besides, DGPS is affected by ionospheric disturbances. Therefore, it is not advisable to come to conclusion about encroachments and illegal mining on the basis of DGPS maps,” Mr Mohanty observed.

The state government had recently introduced DGPS survey of the mining areas basing on which it had detected illegal mining and encroachments by at least 196 firms and slapped on them nearly Rs 68,000 crore penalties.

The mining firms have challenged this in the court as well as urged the state government for reconsideration of its decision to adopt DGPS for the lease deeds executed in the past.

“It will be prudent to enforce the DGPS survey right from the date of submission of PL/ML applications to the government. The subsequent action for verification of documents including maps and land schedule by the mining department or in any other office may be taken by using the said DGPS survey data super-imposed over the Cadestral maps. Similarly, the boundary pillars may be fixed on the ground based on this survey. It will obviate any future litigations arising out of the boundary lines,” Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) co-chairman, Mining & Geology Committee Prabhakar Rout said.

“If some of such pragmatic steps are not taken in this direction, litigations are bound to be flooded as the aggrieved parties will knock the door of the Judiciary seeking natural justice,” he said.