TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The renewal of mining leases is a Rs 1.20 lakh crore scam, Opposition MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco has alleged, arguing that the government should have rather auctioned the leases and earned nearly 10 times the amount.
Speaking during the discussion on demands for grants, Reginaldo said that the government should have formed Goa Mineral Development Corporation, for the same purpose.
“This is a Rs 1.20 lakh crore mining scam. These are the state’s resources, they belong to everybody. Why should they be given to four or six families? Why were they not auctioned? This was a good chance, he said.
Why was it done? Why is there no corporation? If it was too much, there could be one corporation for the north and another for the south,” Reginaldo said.
“It is absolutely necessary that they should be auctioned. If they were auctioned you would get Rs 30,000 crore instead of the Rs 300 crore. It would have been an advantage to us,” Reginaldo said questioning the hurry in which leases were auctioned.
Reginaldo said that he arrived at the figure by extrapolating the one year profit of Sesa Goa company, which he found was Rs 4,000 crore.
He said the revenue earned would be a huge boon to the state and could be used to build infrastructure and not dish out schemes.
It will help in the future, this is hard earned money of the State, infrastructure should be built, not disturbed through schemes, and further could be used to make the State deficit free.
In his reply Parrikar took defence in a Supreme Court order which he said barred him from auctioning the leases. Further he said that he was only collecting fees of renewal which have not been collected over the last 25 years. “This money should have come in 2007,” Parrikar said.
