A day after Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram wrote to Union Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar seeking a probe into illegally-stacked minerals at the Renjeda railway siding in Sundargarh district, a special taskforce team of the State Mines Department started an on-the-spot investigation on Friday.
In his letter, Oram mentioned that minerals worth about `120 crore stacked under the ground have no claimants and hence conceived to be kept illegally for transportation.
He requested Tomar to send an Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) team to probe the matter and take appropriate action.
Asked about the measures taken by the district administration, Sundergarh district Collector Bhupinder Singh Punia said both the district administration and the police had conducted an on-the-spot investigation on Wednesday and it was still on. Culprits would not be allowed to escape, he said.
A Rourkela-based transporter is suspected to have stacked the minerals as he had earlier been caught by Mining officials for illegally transporting minerals. He is running a number of crushers and sponge iron units, sources said.