DC Impact | Mining survey at Anantapur-Bellary border halted

ANANTAPUR: The Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka state border dispute has not come to an end after the team of Survey of India reportedly stopped the survey process and finalising borders between Anantapur-Bellary districts.

High-level authorities from the Centre and teams from both states reacted after the entire episode was published in Deccan Chronicle, and the survey process has reportedly been put on hold, sources said.

This paper reported on contradictions and alleged influence of leaders from Karnataka over fixing of rich mining lands at state borders. Mining companies objected to the present system and demanded a change in the survey process order to avoid any sort of injustice.

This problem has not been raised for many years and the Supreme Court directed that the border dispute be resolved. However, there is no solution to this problem, a mining unit owner Tapala Ganesh, who was fighting against illegal mining, said.

However, the Survey of India has been conducting the survey for the two months.  The Karnataka government has asked them to show the demarcation area.  Survey work in the border area was halted for four days.  With this, the Survey of India officials withdrew from Bellary and AP-Karnataka border demarcation has been duly postponed.

There is a rich iron ore presence at the borders of the two states while speculation is rife that is immense pressures from BJP-led Karnataka over the survey process.

The Union Government is conducting the survey to fix the borders between Bellary and Anantapur district forest lands following dispute for the past one and a half decade after borders were destroyed by the mining companies. Illegal mining of 29 lakh tonnes of rich quality of iron ore from reserved forests had caused damage to the border areas.