Such issues span encroachment of forest areas, underpayment of government royalties, and conflict with tribals regarding land rights.
Rising global iron-ore prices driven by Chinese demand brought focus to the iron ore-rich Bellary region of Karnataka.
The investigation found massive tax evasion and money laundering which prompted mass panic amongst the then BJP government in Karnataka.
GLA, presumed to be named after Janardhana Reddy's wife Gali Laxmi Aruna, has offices in Singapore, Dubai and the British Virgin Islands, which is a 'tax haven'.
[18] Officials at road check posts reportedly collude in a massive under-counting of lorries and trucks transporting the iron-ore from the Bellary mines to the ports.
[20] It was found that 3.5 million tonnes of ore were illegally exported without paying a rupee of royalty to the exchequer, resulting in a loss of about Rs 160.85 billion.
Overloaded trucks carrying ore have caused hundreds of fatal accidents on the roadways leading to ports such as Belekeri and damaged national highways in the region.
The report details the complete breakdown of democratic governance in the bellary area[37][38] and uncovers the "zero risk system", a protection and extortion racket, masterminded by G. Janardhana Reddy.
No action has been taken by any of department state and center excess mining of the specified limit violating operating conditions, assessing impact on the local environment, grabbing unauthorised forest land.
With so much to do, even Justice Shah has expressed doubt if the commission can meet its July deadline[44] Coal mining has run into trouble as well in Angul district over land issues.
The exhaustive five-volume report lays bare how the mines have continued to use a loophole in the law for years and flagrantly violate environmental and other norms to pump out iron at a time when international prices of the metal are booming.
It has recommended that the entire extraction in all cases, where leases are operated without mandatory environmental clearances, be treated as illegal and the market value – domestic or export – recovered from the defaulting miners.
In the Odisha report too, the Commission said action must be taken against State and Central government officers who allowed the illegal mining for years in violation of various laws.
The commission, which has been told to wind up before it reports on illegal mining in Chhattisgarh, has warned that there was an absolute lack of monitoring in Odisha and miners were fearlessly violating provisions of the law as if they did not exist.
It also warned that the practice of merely asking violators to plant more trees than was normally required is not a legitimate alternative to prosecution under the penal provisions of the Forest Conservation Act which attract punishment that includes imprisonment.
[46] The Central Government has been asked by the Supreme Court to submit the Justice Shah Commission report on illegal mining in Odisha and Jharkhand to it by 27 January.
The bench passed the order after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioners, alleged that contents of the report, published in newspapers, are shocking and the apex court should analyse them.
However, the Union Cabinet had in July, 2012 decided to give it a one-year extension, given the voluminous data the commission had to collect and compile on mining from seven states-Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Goa and Madhya Pradesh.
The two interim reports submitted by the commission earlier had led the Supreme Court to impose a temporary ban on mining activities in Goa, the largest exporter of iron-ore in the country.
Prominent research into bauxite mining in Odisha includes the documentary Wira Pdika and Samarendra Das and Felix Padel, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2010).
The Bombay High Court bench in Panaji 26.03.2013 directed the Goa government to file an FIR against over 150 people - including politicians, mine owners and bureaucrats - who have been indicted in the Justice M.B.
The order was issued by Bombay High Court Chief Justice Mohit Shah following a petition by an electricity department employee, Kashinath Shetye, who said that the Rs.
Mining in Goa has been banned for over five months now by the Supreme Court, which is hearing a petition filed by lawyer Prashant Bhushan and local environmental NGOs.
[1] Since October 2013, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) prohibits mining within a kilometre of the boundary of national parks and wildlife sanctuariesin Goa.
[52] On 21 April 2014, Supreme Court of India lifted the ban on mining in Goa and with a temporary annual cap of 20 million tonnes of iron ore excavation, which was 40 MT earlier.
This has brought great damage to the riparian ecosystem, and has led to decreased percolation of water leading to loss of groundwater and drying up of wells.
[56] Sand mining has been a major source of corruption in the state and has even led to violence and intimidation against and murders of activists, policemen, villagers, and journalists.
[64] Illegal mining in the Ganges river bed for stones and sand for construction work has long been a problem in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, where it touches the plains for the first time.
[65] On 14 June, Swami Nigamanada, a 34-year-old monk who was fasting since 19 February 2011 against illegal mining and stone crushing along the Ganges near Haridwar, died at the Himalayan Hospital in Jollygrant in Dehradun, after alleged poisoning by stone-crushing mafia.
However, the bench cancelled 49 leases of category 'C' mines, where maximum illegalities were reported, for "playing havoc with the national economy" and casting an "ominous cloud on the credibility of the system of governance by laws in force".