Political power shift brings BJP mining MLAs into the space left by Cong MLAs
Cabral, Phaldesai, Gaonkar, Sawant are “mining affected” and trying to revive business through e auction transportation
Big time ore exporters during Cong rule are still in the picture now
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: This is an old story revisited. On September 25, 2011, your newspaper had reported on Goa’s mining MLAs (“Politicians in Goa love mining”). Those were the days of the Congress’ big gun ministers and MLAs who were operating as transporters, raising contractors, managers of ore that was sent by rail from Karnataka. Three years later, other players are prominent but the story remains the same. The new protagonists are MLAs of the BJP in the mining belt and some of the behind the scenes players, like exporters and traders, including Mumbai based iron ore exporter Pisces Exim, which had earmarked Rs 1000 crore in 2011 for “acquiring mines”. Its Managing Director, Soumit Jena. in an interview to Mint in 2011 had said “We expect to capture 20% of the iron ore export market from the country, at 10 million tonnes, out of 50 million tonnes annual exports by the turn of the next fiscal. To achieve our target of 10 million tones of exports, we require our own mines and need to invest approximately Rs 1,000 crore,”
Jena, a relative of former Union Minister Srikant Jena, has handled the ore of several Goa “mine owners” or operators and worked closely with Congress MLAs involved in the ore raising and export business. The change of government in Goa didn’t quite change his plans as he did business with BJP MLAs who are mining stakeholders. For instance Ganesh Gaonkar, Sanvordem MLA, who worked in “Pit number 6”, a disputed mine of one of the big mining layers, continued to do ore trading with Pisces, till the mining sector was shut down. Ganesh Gaonkar was also a big transport contractor with one of the largest mining groups in Goa and is said to own 100 trucks directly or through proxies as well as machinery.
Pale MLA Dr Pramod Sawant, is learnt to have had business links with both exporters/ traders Pisces Exim and Prasanna Godge.
Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral may be the chairman of the Goa Tourism Development Corporation, but he has earned his spurs in the other cash cow mining, emerging from a small time barge contractor to a barge owner. Cabral was a mining engineer for a long time with a mining company in Codli before he became the ‘associate’ of the then
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Congress MLA Shyam Satardekar who he ‘dethroned.’ Satardekar was the king of the Sanvordem railway station where he controlled all the transport business of ore that used reach on railway wagons from outside Goa.
Subhash Phaldesai’s main family business has been transportation As his brothers son Kunal has apparently bagged the contract to transport the e auctioned ore from the Dinar Tarcar run Kadnekar mines. This was actually one of the flashpoints of the Cavrem protests last week. Faldessai a former ZP member with obvious affiliations with the Congress then, is now a BJP MLA. Yet another example to show that party affiliations may change, but business interests don’t.
