The government of the eastern Indian state of Odisha has issued official notices to 152 iron ore and manganese mines in the region setting a deadline of December 31, 2017 to pay a total penalty of $3.17 billion for illegal extraction of iron ore, a government official said on Tuesday, September 5.
The government official said that each miner has been issued a separate “demand notice”, specifying their respective penalty amounts that will have to be deposited by the deadline, as per order of India’s Supreme Court.
It has been made clear in the notice that in case of failure to deposit the penalty within the deadline, the Odisha government will initiate action to suspend operations of the mining lease of the respective lease holder, the official said.
It might be noted that in a verdict delivered last month the Supreme Court directed that 100 percent of the value of iron ore and manganese ore extracted in violation of laws and rules will have to be recovered from miners.