Team Herald
PANJIM: The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) Vice President Sankalp Amonkar on Friday came down heavily on Mormugao MLA and Urban Development Minister Milind Naik for illegally selling iron ore worth Rs 3.50 crore and demanded inquiry through Crime Branch or Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the illegality.
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Addressing the media persons, Amonkar alleged that the Directorate of Mines and Geology (DMG) and Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) staff are hand in gloves with the minister, who owns the firm Essar Minmet and stevedore is M N Construction (MNC), which is involved in illegal excavation, screening, transportation and loading of iron ore without necessary permits from DMG.The supplier of cargo to the vessel is Kodee Resources.
Explaining in detail, Amonkar said that about a week ago, MNC has brought an excavator, screening machine and wheel loader into the port and has probably at the behest of Kodee Resources excavated iron ore cargo from the port plots and started screening the same.
“This operation can be deemed as a mining activity as they have excavated ore from the ground which has not been declared by the Port to DMG and is thus in violation of the Supreme Court order,” Amonkar alleged.
He said that the Kodee Resources in connivance with MNC has attempted to extract ore from the ground within the port premises which is of 58 Grade in substitution of his previous bid ore which is of about 50 Grade.
