May 3: The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that its agencies would need at least three months to complete fresh demarcation of the mining areas of Reddy brothers’ Obulapuram Mining Company and three others as recommended by the special survey team. Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam made
the submission to this effect before a bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, which posted the case for detailed hearing on Thursday. “We need about three months to complete the demarcation as suggested by the survey team… we will explain it tomorrow,” Mr Subramaniam said.
The survey team appointed by the apex court, in its final report had recommended fresh demarcation of three leases of OMC and three other firms in Bellary forest area after it found “major discrepancies” in the sketches issued by mines and geology department and forest department of Andhra Pradesh.
Besides, it stated that lease areas were earmarked without reference to inter-positional boundaries and technically the sketches had not defined boundaries of the leases when the polygons do not close. The team, which recommended that the mining should continue to be suspended till the demarcation is complete, had suggested that the fresh mapping has to be done by fixing coordinated boundary pillars for each lease.
The report found OMC covering area “excess” by 2.4 hectares in one of the mining field measuring 68.5 hectare while in two other plots, the company’s occupied area was even found in deficit by 0.98.