A sadhu dreams of hidden gold in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district. Three ministers vie for their golden moment. An internationally covered treasure hunt turns into a fiasco embarrassing the government and the country.
The gold dig, based on sadhu Shobhan Sarkar’s dream of 10,000 tonnes of the yellow metal hidden under the Raja Rao Ram Baksh Singh’s fort in Daundiya Kheda village, has created bad blood within various ministries of the Union Government.
The Prime Minister Office (PMO) is out to fix responsibility for the washout following instructions from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the last week of October, it sought detailed explanations from the Ministry of Culture (MoC), headed by Chandresh Kumari Katoch, and the Ministry of Mines (MoM), headed by Dinsha J Patel. The gold dream began, according to the MoM, when Minister of State for Agriculture Charandas Mahant requested the Geological Survey of India (GSI), under MoM, to do a field study in Unnao.
The minister, who had once sworn to sweep the office floor if Sonia Gandhi asked him to, cited the sadhu’s dream as proof. Following this, the MoM directed GSI to conduct the field research. The weeklong excavation, which was started under full media glare in the remote village on October 18, unearthed only iron nails, a miniature stone lion, terracotta beads, a few glass bangles and remains of burnt brick walls. “The PM is very embarrassed by the drama. His office was sceptical from the very beginning and now wants to fix it,” said a source within the government.
The Archaeological Survey of Indian (ASI), under the MoC, did the excavation following instructions from the GSI. The GSI headquarters in Kolkata gave the instructions in October following the MoM’s green signal.
Confirming that the PMO has sought an explanation, an MoC official told The Sunday Standard that the ministry has presented its case to the PMO. “Our minister had gone in person to present the ministry’s case. She has given clarifications on all issues related to excavation,” said the official.
The MoC has submitted that it “received the preliminary investigations report of GSI from the Ministry of Mines on 8th October, 2013” which mentioned that “prominent non-magnetic anomalous zone occurring at 5-20 m depth indicative of possible non conducting, metallic contents and/or some alloys, etc” exist at the site. The GSI report also suggested “excavation for further interest at the specified site”. According to the source, Katoch has also apprised the Prime Minister of the alleged tampering of the GSI report.
“If such a thing has happened with the GSI report, then it is a criminal offence which needs to be brought to the book and our minister was very particular about this,’’ said the official.
He said that the MoC has been maintaining from the very beginning that the excavation is being done after the GSI’s report and not because of a sadhu’s dream.
“The ASI decided to go for excavation on the basis of the report and now we are unnecessarily being held responsible for the whole mess,’’ said the official. But the MoM, on its part, has maintained that none of its reports have mentioned the presence of gold in Unnao. “All that the GSI report had said was the presence of conductive material. If the ASI decided to go for a gold hunt, it is their mistake,” remarked a ministry official.
The report was prepared by the geophysics division of GSI’s Lucknow centre from where it was sent to the headquarters of GSI in Kolkata in October first week. From there, it was forwarded to the MoM in October second week.
Patel would also be meeting the PM soon to present his ministry’s case. The MoM official ruled out any possibility of tampering with the report. “Neither the preliminary report nor the GPRS-equipped report which was done later has ever mentioned gold. Then where does the issue of tampering arise?” he asked.
According to him, the preliminary report submitted by the Lucknow circle has not even suggested excavation.
It is, however, learnt that there are discrepancies between the report forwarded by the regional GSI office and the one that reached the MoC. The MoM has ordered an internal inquiry following the PMO query.
Mines secretary R H Khwaja, however, did not respond to emails or phone calls regarding this.
“It is an internal matter not to be revealed to the press,’’ said an official with the secretary’s office. The MoM in its argument has in detail explained the involvement of Mahant who had written to the ASI and GSI to conduct a survey of the site. “In hindsight we feel we should not have taken up his request with this seriousness. But if we had not, then it would have been another issue,” said the official.