Trade Union leader Mayadhar Nayak has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps for release of arrear of Rs3,496 crore as mining royalty of Odisha which is lying unpaid with the Centre for years.
In a letter to Modi, the copy of which has been forwarded to the Union Minister of Mines, the Union Finance Minister and the Chief Ministers of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Rajasthan, Nayak lamented that the request of the mineral bearing States for revision in the mining royalty has been lent a deaf ear by the Centre for long years.
Especially, the Congress — led UPA Government had remained totally apathetic to this genuine demand of the States and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in particular as it was always pandering to the interest of the mining barons, he alleged.
Nayak said that Odisha was losing Rs5 crore per day because of non-revision of mining royalty since August 2012. He said that this is acting as a big stumbling block in the progress of the poor State and urged Modi to immediately take step so that the State got its due. Nayak also urged the Prime Minister to devise a national policy on mining and distribution of royalty.