By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/BARBIL/CHAMPUA: Instead the Iron ore mined from 4 Mines owned by JSW Steel reaching Jurudi and Bansapani Railway sidings, the minerals are being mysteriously transported to Jharkhand and West Bengal with help of mines mafias and of the 4 Mines of JSW Steel, Nuagaon and Jajang Iron Ore Blocks are now hot bed for illegal mineral theft in Keonjhar district of Odisha, sources said.
The latest development happened when a night patrolling team with prior tipoff had waited at Anseikala village under Joda police station near Jharkhand border and seized five dumpers loaded with illegal iron ore when the vehicles were trying to cross the boundary of Odisha. The registered numbers of vehicles seized are OR- 09K- 8711, OR- 09K- 7811, OR-09J- 9321, OR- 14C- 1181 and OD- 14C- 1181.
The Joint Director of Mines had asked for issuing show cause notice to SK Transport and Lily Transport which are alleged to have hired the seized vehicles to smuggle the iron ore to West Bengal through border of Jharkhand. While SK Transport is owned by BJD District Youth vice- president Sanjiv Kumar Palei, Lily Transport is owned by his brother, Bida Palei, an industrialist.
When asked, Sanjiv, who is said to be a close aide of Champua MLA Meenakshi Mahanta, said that he had engaged the vehicles to transport the iron ores from Nuagaon mines of JSW Steel to the railway siding of Jurudi and Bansapani but did not know how the vehicles reached Jharkhand.
Sources further revealed that after the seizure of the vehicles, the Forest Department had written to the RTO, Keonjhar, to ascertain the owners of the seized vehicles and intimate to the Joint Director of Mines, Joda, for next course of action.
Few days back, villagers of Jajang under the Bamebari police station of Keonjhar district intercepted a truck having Registration No. OR- O5AC- 1927 and handed over the vehicle to the local police which was lifting illegally high grade iron ores from the nearby SG Pandya mines, a mine owned by the State Government.
However, one Gurupreet Singh, a native of Joda, came to the police station and wanted to free the truck by showing a transit permit. The permit shows that on February 15, the disputed truck had loaded 19.9 mt of iron ore from the JSW Nuagaon mines and was originally destinated to reach Shiv Shankar Sponge Iron Pvt Ltd of Purulia of West Bengal through Nalda gate of Odisha latest by February 19.But the truck got diverted and reached Jajang instead of going through Nalda with some ulterior motive.
