Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa Foundation, the whistleblower and petitioner in the illegal mining case before the Supreme Court, has raised doubts over Arvind Kejriwal’s intentions to make iron ore mining in Goa the best in the world and equated the party with BJP, with both in favour of increasing the annual ore extraction cap.
“Kejriwal promises to make Goa’s mining the best in the world. We had a metallurgist, ostensibly trained in IIT as our CM for some years (Manohar Parrikar). If he could not ensure environmentally sound mining, we doubt Kejriwal can, with no experience whatsoever,” GF director Dr Claude Alvares said in a statement released on Friday.
“Also Kejriwal has made a populist promise that AAP government will approach the Supreme Court to raise the annual extraction cap from 20 million tonnes to 35-40 million tonnes. This request is already in the Supreme Court and it is the request of the BJP government. So how is AAP different from the BJP?” he asked.
Goa Foundation was also displeased that AAP met only mining-dependants and did not bother about the mining affected or the custodians of the minerals as to what should be done.
Kejriwal, during his recent visit to Goa, met mining-dependants and made a series of promises including recovery of loot from the lease holders, increasing the annual cap, etc. “We strongly support the idea of environmentally sustainable, green, honest mining and recovery of loot from the lease holders,” Alvares said.
He added, “This is where our proposals differ. The Shah Commission had placed the looted wealth at Rs 35,000 crore. However, this was before the Supreme Court judgement that declared mining activity for the past five years as illegal in the State. Since the Supreme Court is to be followed, the Shah Commission figure needs to be revised to Rs 65,000 crore,” he said.
However, Alvares said that the amount cannot be distributed among mining-dependants. “That simply cannot be done. It is public money. It belongs to all Goans. Questions have already been raised about why the government was providing relief to truckers from the public exchequer, when it was the duty of the mining companies to do so,” he said.
