A high power panel known as Shah Commission was set up by the Union Ministry of Mines in 2010 to look into the illegal mining of iron ore and manganese in the country and submitted its first report in October 2013.
This report has revealed a sort of scam of illegal mining of Iron and Manganese ores in Odisha. Two districts, Keonjhar and Sundergarh are badly affected by illegal excess mining.
There is a large scale violation of environment and forest laws, rules and notifications. Majority of the lease holders violated the Environment Impact Assessment Notification and operated without environment clearances.
The commission also traced freight evasion, false excise certificates and recommended that Railways should ask CBI to investigate it.
The commission recommended that the future mining leases should be granted via only the auction route.
