National Mining Policy in next session: Reddy

New Delhi, Dec 4 (UNI) The National Mining Policy, aimed at putting an end to illegal mining, will be introduced in the Budget Session next year, Minister of State for Mines T Subbarami Reddy announced in the Lok Sabha today.

''After getting approval of the Cabinet, we will introduce the Policy in the next session,'' Mr Reddy said, replying to a supplementary.

To the main question, he said 483 cases of illegal mining of iron ore in Orissa, 340 cases in Karnataka, 15 in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Chhattisgarh and Goa had been reported since 2004-05 till date.

He said the State Governments had detected 69,003 cases of illegal mining of minerals between July 2005 and June 2007. Of these, 12,780 cases were taken to court and Rs 137.27 crore was realised as fine or penalty UNI