The Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has found massive irregularities in Odisha’s mining administration which caused the exchequer losses to the tune of R9,000 crore.
In its latest performance audit report on the revenue sector tabled in the state
Assembly recently, the top auditor said as many as 17 mining companies made undue gains on account of the irregularities.
According to the report, manipulation of the state’s Integrated Mines & Minerals Management System (i3MS) caused a loss of about R659 crore.
The i3MS system is touted by the Odisha government as one of the best IT-enabled tools in the country to check all illegal transactions in the mining sector.
Saying the objective of the i3MS was to curb illegal mining by end-to-end tracking of mineral movement/ transportation, the CAG has observed that the purpose could not be achieved due to several deficiencies such as non-update of transportation made through offline e-passes, absence of internet connectivity and non-integration of weigh-bridges with the system.
As against 43,464 e-permits for 188.60 million tonne iron ore and manganese ore, e-passes for only 19,053 permits for transportation of 88.39 million tonne were available in the database, indicating inadequate end-to-end tracking of transportation of minerals.