JOIN USJust weeks after he became the compromise chief minister in mid-2007 to quell the feuding, Digambar Kamat narrowly survived a trust vote, thanks largely to Speaker Pratapsingh Rane. No one expected the Congress’ new ineffectual leader would make it to the end of the year, leave aside his five-year term. But compromise and self-serving leadership have helped Kamat weather every crisis. It is ironic that less than six months away from the polls, the spotlight is on the Goa chief minister for his quiet but brazen protection of the rampaging mining lobby.
A public accounts committee (PAC) report that will be finalised on Monday and presented to the state assembly convening Wednesday, is expected to nail the chief minister for shielding massive irregularities in Goa’s iron ore extraction and export business running into thousands of crores of rupees. Chaired by BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, the PAC is unlikely to spare Congress and NCP politicians who’ve become dizzyingly cash-rich overnight with mining mafia and officials, who’ve helped hasten the process. Urban Development Minister Joaquim Alemao is one of the biggest raising contractors (they hire out heavy duty equipment and extract ore) in the business today, as is Goa PCC chief Subhash Shirodkar. MLAs, ministers’ sons, relatives, friends and retired cops too have detoured from real estate deals on the coast to gouging out the red earth in Goa’s lush hinterland.
“Connivance at the political and bureaucratic level has allowed raising contractors to become real mine owners today,” Parrikar says. Over the last few days the BJP, smarting from the mining embarrassment in Karnataka, has trained its guns on the Congress and two of its ministers, Alemao and Vishvajit Rane, the desperately ambitious son of the Speaker. Rane Jr who has denied any links to mining would have a hard time convincing his constituents in Satari. Contractors operating in his area have to pay Rs 50 per tonne as political patronage to lift ore from dumps, Parrikar says, insisting that “neither
Vishvajit nor Joaquim can escape responsibility for illegal mining.”
The only politician taken to task by Kamat so far is the NCP’s national general secretary Jitendra Deshprabhu, that too after a court order. Arrested for mining over Rs 4 crore worth of ore illegally on his agricultural land, Deshprabhu faces a fine of Rs 1.72 crore.
Given the fate of PAC reports at the Centre, the Congress may well decide to brush this one off as well, though its image has already taken a beating after its stand on the Reddy brothers in Karnataka. What the Congress needs to seriously worry over is the Justice M B Shah Commission. Appointed by the Centre to investigate illegal manganese and iron ore mining in the country, the commission’s report on Goa due in November could singe Kamat politically as the minefield of allegations close in on him for his role in presiding over gross irregularities as minister for mines for 12 years.
Schoolteacher and anti-mining activist Ramesh Gauns who’s been fighting Goa’s biggest mining companies like Sesa Goa and Dempo for the environmental destruction around Bicholim, North Goa, said public hearings in villages have been “systematically managed by the state government” and turned into a farce. What’s happening in Goa is much worse than Bellary, says Gauns, because at 3,702 sq kms, Goa is less than half the size of Karnataka’s district, yet it has 336 valid mining leases as against 99 mines in Bellary.
In 2010-2011, India’s smallest state -- it occupies just 0.11 per cent of the country’s geographical area – shipped out more than half its iron ore in exports. Goa’s low ferrous content ore is entirely export oriented. In a rush to steer clear of the dark clouds mounting over the industry, the Goa Mineral Ore Exporters’ Association (GMOEA) said that of the 54.45 million metric tonnes (MMT) of iron ore shipped out of Goa last year, 7.61 MMT of “unclassified” ore (the source was unaccounted) had been exported by 63 unregistered traders. GMOEA has 54 registered exporters who shipped out 46.84 MMT.
Legalising the illegal
The big boys of Goa’s mining industry have been at pains to project themselves as the good guys falsely demonised by activists and the media. “We are against illegal mining. It’s the fly-by-night operators who are involved,” one of them said. But hard facts show just how upfront they’ve all been in their greed for profits with the China boom. China sourced 90 per cent of Goa’s ore last year, only 3.4 MMT went to Japan.
Three public interest petitions currently before the Bombay High Court, filed by Goa Foundation, provide some incontrovertible statistics. Forty-eight mining companies exceeded production limits by 13.47 million tonnes from 2006 to 2010, violating environment management and mine closure plans. Instead of acting against the violators, the government collected royalty on the illegal export to give it legitimacy.
“There might have been some mismatch in production figures because some people exported dumps. But we collected royalty on this,” Kamat said.
Dempo Mining, Sesa Goa, Chowgule & Co, V M Salgaocar, V S Dempo, Sociedade Timblo Irmaos and Bandekar Bros all glaringly exceeded production limits. The PAC has been able to pin down illegal exports of over 15 MMT over the last five years, Parrikar says, its value running to over Rs 3,500 crore.
The Karnataka Lokayukta report too details the movement of 4.56 million tonnes of illegally mined ore from Karnataka to Goa by rail between 2006 to 2010-11 and unloaded at Tinaighat and Sanvordem railway stations by 40 consigners from the neighbouring state. The source and links of this illegal despatch and Shree Mallikarjun Shipping, which operates at Belekeri port and in Goa may now well be exposed with Karnataka’s conservator of forests U V Singh on the Shah Commission team. Singh said 90 operating mines in Goa had been inspected and another 36 leases operating without clearances were being examined. The police, asked by the Commission to trace the 405 traders registered with mines department, found that over 100 gave fictitious addresses. Who were they and where did they operate? The findings could be damaging for the Congress in election-bound Goa.
‘Allow illegal mining, we have truck loans to repay’
If tourists ventured beyond the sun and surf to inland Goa, they might be shocked by the surreal landscape in the mining hinterland. Giant craters have been excavated well below the water table in icholim taluka, North Goa, green hills bleed red earth in Quepem, South Goa where sacred groves and village springs have not been spared by the frenzy for black gold. A spirited resistance put up by village women kept mining trucks from passing through Caurem for three months before the monsoon.
The China rush has given a huge impetus to the ore trucking business in Goa. “They’ve gone up from 10,000 to 25,000 trucks in the business in the last four years,” says Public Accounts Committee chairman Manohar Parrikar. It has also allowed the unscrupulous mining lobby bolster its muscle power and create discord among villagers, pitting those in transportation against those resisting mining. At the public hearing by Justice Shah Commission that was hijacked by transporters, some suggested illegal mining be regularised because there were truck loans to be repaid!
Related