One of 3 leases gets experts clean chit

A taem of experts from Survey of India on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it hardly found any encroachment on a 68.5-hectare mine lease of the Reddy brothers flagship Obulapuram Mining Company....

A taem of experts from Survey of India on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it hardly found any encroachment on a 68.5-hectare mine lease of the Reddy brothers flagship Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC).

But the government said it did not expect any major encroachments in this mine lease,and was waiting for results on the remaining two mining areas,covering 39.5 hectares and 25.98 hectares,being mined by the OMC. Besides,the 68.5-hectare mine stretch of the OMC is geographically separate from the other two areas,government officials said.

The OMC is owned by Karnataka ministers,G Janardhana Reddy,Minister for Tourism and Infrastructure,and G Karunakara Reddy,Minister for Revenue.

As per apex court orders on March 23 this year,the team,comprising six officials of the Survey of India,is conducting field inspections of six iron ore mine leases near Obulapuram in Anantpur district of Andhra Pradesh to ascertain if miners had encroached on the reserve forests of Bellary.

The prime purpose is to check whether the boundaries of the leases have been deliberately shifted by the miners. The team is led by Major General A K Padha,who is Additional Surveyor General with Survey of India. It has categorically asked the Supreme Courts Forest Bench headed by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan to order an end to mining operations during the survey work.

Mining had continued in the two lease areas even as the team was surveying the 68.5-hectare stretch. The court had relented after OMC pleaded that its export contracts would be ruined. The March 28 survey found a total of 11 boundary pillars five of which were adjacent to the inter-state boundary of AP and Karnataka.

The team found the extent of land to be 68.4 hectares while the lease agreement with the OMC was only for 66 hectares,excluding a 2.5-hectare land for a public road. But for this,the survey blamed AP forest officials.