Anantapur, December 19: A three-member Central Empowered Committee will be reaching here on December 21 and undertake a field visit to the Obulapuram mines on the following day. On coming back, it will interact with the officials concerned here on December 23 and then return to Delhi via Bangalore.
The committee, comprising member-secretary M K Jiwa Rajika and members Mahendra Vyas and A D N Rao, will inspect the mines in regard to the boundary and mining jurisdiction dispute.
Rajika wrote to principal secretaries (forests) and other senior officials of the forests, mining, revenue and other departments of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as well as officials of the Survey of India directing them to attend the meeting.
The committee also asked the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC), Anantapuram Mining Company (AMC), Mahabaleswarappa & Sons (M&S) and Bellary Iron Ore Private Limited company (BIOPL) to send their representatives to the meeting.
OMC, owned by Karnataka tourism minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, has been in the thick of a controversy for the past three years over alleged illegal mining in lands owned by the Bellary Iron Ore Company since January 13, 2007. Reddy is accused of personally supervising the illegal mining, threatening BIOPL employees and posting armed gangs at the sites, forcing the BIOPL managing director to lodge a complaint with the D Hirehal police. Since then, both companies have lodged complaints and counter-complaints, and the matter went to the High Court. Later, BIOPL filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. However, this did not deter OMC from carrying out mining. Of the five companies operating in the area, three belong to the Gali brothers. First-grade ore is available only in the mines leased by BIOPL. But with Reddy becoming a powerful BJP leader and a minister in Karnataka, BIOPL could not stop his company from encroaching on its territory.
In 2007 the AP government sent an all-party committee to study the issue and the team’s report said there was no illegal mining activity taking place in Obulapuram which is in the border area between the two states. BIOPL then went to the Supreme Court which appointed an Empowered Committee headed by AK Pada.
The committee felt illegal mining was taking place but wanted a clear-cut demarcation of the border between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as well as between the lands belonging to all the mining companies.
Officials of the two states met thrice in July but could not come to any conclusion as they were divided on whether the borders should be earmarked basing on the 1879 map or the 1975 map.
In the meanwhile, the AP High Court vacated a stay on the CBI probe into alleged illegal mining by OMC. The present Empowered Committee, appointed by the apex court on November 19, is coming here to inspect the mines and listen to the parties concerned.
—Agencies