The Justice M.B. Shah Commission report, which was tabled inparliament Friday, says that Goa's iron ore mining scam is worth nearlyRs.35,000 crore. The BJP immediately demanded that former chief ministerDigambar Kamat be booked for his alleged role in the scam.
The voluminous report holds the state government and centralgovernment agencies as parties to the scam, along with the powerful miningoperators here, who according to Justice Shah, plundered natural resource andfacilitated an "unrestricted, unchecked and unregulated export of iron oreto China", which made the exporters of ore "richer and richer".
Shah's report indicts Kamat, who was minister for mines forover a decade from 2000 to 2012. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has nowdemanded that Kamat be booked and all the recommendations made by theCommission to implemented.
Speaking to the media Friday night, state BJP presidentLaxmikant Parsenkar said that Kamat should now be booked for the huge miningscam.
"We demand that the government file an FIR (firstinformation report) against Kamat for his role in the mining scam. All the recommendationsmade by Justice Shah should now be implemented by the central government,"Parsenkar said, adding that all mines near forest areas should be stopped anddisbanded.
"By taking the average export cost at $60 per metrictonne of iron ore from 2006 to 2011 with a conversion rate of Rs.47 per USdollar, the total loss to the state comes out as (127257400.00 x 60 x 47)Rs.34935,928800000," Shah has said, pinning down the majority of the scamin the five years, when an energy-hungry China aggressively imported ore fromGoa.
The former judge has now said that the mining firms whichhave been allowed to illegally extract and export ore should be fined"exemplary" for the financial loss, loss to the environment, ecology,and punished for the wrong doing.
Shah in his report has also indicted the Indian Bureau ofMines (IBM), union ministry for environment and forests, state directorate ofmines, state forest department as well as the Goa State Pollution Control Board(GSPCB) for the illegal mining, which the report says was spread across over500 hectares of area, several hundred acres of which was in forest as well asgovernment owned land.
"Large scale mining, overexploitation of minerals wouldresult into change of natural eco-system of the area. This will affect thetourism industry of the state. The impact of mining including illegal mininghas already been felt. The IBM and MoEF have increased production without aproper justification purely on commercial grounds ignoring the impact of miningon protected areas, environment and eco-system," the report states in itscritique, adding that mining in Goa should be capped more than half of the 50million plus.
The report which was tabled in parliament Friday also saysthat forest laws were completely flouted by the mining companies and even mineswhich were illegally functioning even in forest areas were not stopped by thegovernment authorities.
"All the mining activities should be stopped withimmediate effect including transportation for all-mining leases where there isno approval or clearance of the Standing Committee of NBWL and are fallingwithin 10 km of eco-sensitive buffer zone," Shah has recommended.
All major mining companies which includes Sesa Goa andcompanies run by the influential mining families in Goa namely the Timblos,Salgaonkar Chowgules, etc have been hauled up by the Shah Commission forillegalities in the mining sector.
The illegalities range from over exploitation of ore,environment violations, encroachment, etc.
