Bhubaneswar: The state exchequer faced a loss of more than Rs 250 crore as the steel and mines department overlooked illegal mining, failed to raise dead and surface rent, ignored delayed royalty and premium payments and did not amend lease deeds even after production limits were enhanced, a CAG report has pointed out.The CAG has urged the department to immediately recover dues, activate automated demand-and-interest systems, amend lease deeds without delay and strengthen monitoring in district mining offices.According to the performance and compliance audit report for 2022-23, tabled in the assembly on Tuesday, scrutiny of records of the deputy director of mines (DDM), Baripada, showed that the lessee of Badampahar iron ore mines extracted 14.94 lakh MT of ore in 2019-20 against the environmental clearance of 13.05 lakh MT, exceeding the limit by 1.89 lakh MT.
The excess production attracted a payment of Rs 40.67 crore, but no demand was raised.Similarly, in Joda mining circle, the lease deed was not amended even after the production limit in the mining plan was enhanced—first to 1.5 MTPA in 2019 and later to 30 MTPA in March 2021. Failure to amend the deed led to non-levy of stamp duty and registration fee worth Rs 122 crore.The audit also found inconsistencies in the calculation of surface rent that hat mining lease holders pay to the govt for using the surface area of the land covered under the mining lease.
While the joint director of mines calculated annual surface rent at Rs 10.75 lakh using a lower rate applicable to non-revenue land, the Barbil tehsildar assessed it at Rs 83.08 lakh, considering revenue-assessable land at market rates.
The differential royalty and surface rent of Rs 1,742.84 crore—on which stamp duty and registration fee should have been levied—was never acted upon.Further, interest amounting to Rs 90.61 crore on delayed payments of royalty, premium, district mineral foundation (DMF), National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) and dead rent (amount that a mining lease holder must pay the government every year, whether or not any mining actually takes place in the lease area) was not realised.
Audit found that five lessees paid Rs 1,854.77 crore towards mining revenues between June 2020 and August 2022 for dues pending since 2014, with delays ranging from 44 to 2,367 days.
But the concerned authorities failed to levy interest on any of the delayed payments.In two mining circles, the department also did not levy dead rent of Rs 2.55 crore against 10 lessees and surface rent of Rs 93.71 lakh against nine lessees for the period July 2020 to Dec 2022, leading to a revenue loss of Rs 3.49 crore.
