The State Government issued closure notices on seven mines on Monday as leaseholders failed to pay penalty for excess mining by December 31, 2017 as per the direction of the Supreme Court.
The mines include the Serajuddin’s Balda block iron mines, Mesco Roida mines, Idcol’s Roida mines, Corp Resources’ Tantra mines, National Enterprises’ Raikila mines, Essel Mining’s Koida mines and OMM’s Patakada mines.
According to information, the State Government would submit the status report to the apex court on January 4 while the next hearing date is January 17.
“The working mines that have failed to pay the penalty (for excess mining) have been suspended from today. We will collect the fine amount from them as per law by filing cases,” said Mines Minister Prafulla Mallick on Monday.
The Supreme Court has been monitoring the illegal operations. Further courses of action would be taken after January 17 hearing, the Minister added.
While a total of 131 mine leaseholders were asked to pay penalty, 72, including OMC and 30 other functional mines, paid their fine amounts, totaling `8,223 crore by December-end.
The Government collected the fines from leaseholders as compensation towards illegal extraction of iron and manganese ore between 2000-01 and 2010-11.
The Central Empowered Committee (CEC), appointed by the Supreme Court, had assessed the total penalty amount at `17,576 crore.