Kancha Gaunder, without quite realising it, has become a lighthouse and a signpost in the rough sea for the Special Investigation Team going after close to 400 traders, illegal fly by night mining traders, the real stink in Goa’s illegal mining scam. Very closely linked to politicians and in some cases, mining companies themselves, the story of Kancha Gaunder is a slap on Goa’s mining apparatus.
In a clear case of dirty collusion, 400 traders registered themselves on false addresses. They did not own leases and most of them simply carried out loot and scoot operations in the following manner. A) They stole directly from dumps and transported ore, often not paying royalty. B) They borrowed from the extraction quota of an existing mining lease and transported the ore. The illegality is that the source of the ore was not identified and often the trader exported dumps over and above the extraction quota. He made RTGS transfers to lease holders and bought the ore and then exported it, often with the royalty not paid.
The bank details of Kancha Gaunder suggest crores of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) in his account related to mining firms and individuals.
For close to seven years, this has been the biggest mystery of the mining scam. While the race has been to get the established Goan miners, whose families and firms are deeply rooted to the land, since they are low hanging fruit, 400 odd traders have simply vanished from the face of the earth. To look for them the investigating agencies are coming up with addresses like “Azad Maidan Goa”, “Opposite Curchorem railway station” and “18th June road”. And these addresses were taken on record and supposedly registered. All of them minted profits during the mining boom through illegal exports and transportation. And this was all allowed.
As the SIT does its job, both GMOEA and the Mines Department need to do some serious explaining or else heads must roll. Why were traders allowed in the first place? This was done purely to tap into the boom and use illegal means to either steal from dumps or mine in excess of the permissible quota.
Many traders were linked closely to politicians in the miming business while some traders were politicians themselves. When they made money through exports, they basically whitewashed bribe money, in lieu of which politicians of the ruling dispensation then, facilitated the loot, by weakening the Mines Department into a helpless bystander as the dacoity of Goan ore continued.
We need answers. From the plots leased by traders, about 24 of them, to dump ore, to the barges in which they took it to port, to the customs officers who allowed this illegal ore to pass, by stamping “Let export” on the shipping bill, each transaction has an element of illegality if the basic of shipment is illegal. Thus, the loss has to be calculated not just in terms of the cost of the illegal ore but on the basis of illegal money flow in the system.
Every export contract supervised by GMOEA involving traders needs to be scrutinized and investigated and monies made from any contract or transaction identified and recovered.
Kancha Gaunder will hopefully and finally open the pandoras box but his story is not a surprise, it is merely an affirmation of the rot in Goa’s mining, the rot which strikes deep and lies at the door of the traders, who have simply vanished.
But the criminals who help them vanish are probably here. Let’s start with them, finally. But the sad story is that far too much time has been lost.
