The State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) has imposed a penalty of Rs5 lakh on the Government-run Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) for flouting the pollution control norms by commencing operation of a crusher unit in Sundargarh without legitimate permission from the SPCB.
According to sources, the OMC has a mine at Kurmita under Barsuan mines area of Sundargarh district. The OMC had applied for setting up a crushing and screening plant in the mine with production capacity of 800 tones per hour. As per the procedure, after granting of permission from the SPCB, the applicant has to deposit one per cent of the project cost as the establishment fees and the project cost of OMC crushing and screening plant was shown as Rs12.47 crore.
As per the provision of Section 3.2 of the Water and Air pollution Prevention Act, the organisation found violating the norms can face financial penalty and the same amount can be as high as five times of the establishment fees.
Sources said while the application of the OMC for establishing the crushing and screening plant was under process in Rourkela regional office of SPCB, the OMC authorities allegedly had established their plant and started its operation, presuming the approval from the SPCB. The SPCB officials of Rourkela regional office had come to know about the development, during inspection of the unit, after which they had brought the matter to the knowledge of the SPCB headquarters and also had recommended for penalty. Member Secretary of SPCB Odisha, after examining the facts, imposed penalty on the OMC recently. “A penalty of Rs5 lakh has been imposed on OMC, after approval of competent authority on December 3. As per order, they need to pay the fine within a period of 30 days,” said Regional Officer of SPCB, Rourkela unit Mukesh Mahalinga. “