Team Herald
PANJIM: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Goa unit, supported a proposal by Goa Foundation and backed by Herald in the setting up of the Goenchi Mati Permanent Fund that aims to create a fund for people involved in the mining sector and who have had no share in the sale of the State’s iron ore and mineral wealth.
AAP Goa State Committee member Dean D’Cruz said the fund comes as a relief from the past where people have received nothing.
“Despite being the rightful owners of the iron ore and other mineral wealth in the State, Goan people have received nothing but peanuts from the sale of this wealth, due to an unholy nexus between successive governments and the mining companies,” he said. He said during 2004-2012, the State received less than 5 percent of the total Rs 88,000 crore estimated value of the iron ore exported, in addition to the irreparable environmental degradation from indiscriminate and illegal mining. The Shah Commission report estimated the loss to the public exchequer from illegal mining to be Rs 35,000 crore.
“Not only did the BJP-led government not make any serious efforts to recover the estimated loss, but to add insult to injury, it went ahead and decided to renew the leases of the mines to the very same companies who have been named in the said scam,” said D’Cruz.
The party went on to state that the if the policy on mineral wealth, instead of favouring mining companies is made to favour the aam aadmi, it would add an estimated Rs 2,50,000 to every Goan’s net worth instead of the Rs 70,000 debt that he/she is currently saddled with because of sheer mismanagement and corruption by successive governments.
They suggested the government take steps to cancel current leases to companies that have been indicted in the illegal mining cases, create a government-owned Goa Mineral Development Corporation, auction the extraction contracts for limited, supervised mining and take delivery of the ore; and auction the extracted ore in the Indian or international market, and deposit the money in a Goenchi Mati Permanent Fund.
