Not Rs 35,000 Cr, it's Rs 70,000 Cr Goa can recover: Claude
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 22 April 2014 21:13 IST
Goa government can earn up to Rs 70,000 crore if the Supreme Court order on Goa’s mining is implemented by the state government judiciously, states Dr Claude Alvares of Goa Foundation.
The apex court has met most of the demands made by the GF, the petitioner which challenged the illegal mining in Goa.
To calculate Rs 70,000 crore, Dr Alvares considers three aspects –
1. The ongoing E-auction of the dumps
2. The Shah Commission report, which calculated illegality of Rs 35,000 crore
3. Yesterday’s order by the Supreme Court, which decided that all the leases sold the ore illegally for five years – from 2007 to 2012, till the mining was banned
As per the records Dr Alvares quotes, Goa extracted total 282 MT of iron ore from 2004 to 2012, amounting to Rs 87,000 crore. The ore worth Rs 30,000 crore from this was extracted and sold from 2007 onwards, he states.
“We have not included the cost of extraction and transportation in this but only the profits the mine owners have made”, observed Dr Alvares.
According to him, this works out to approximately Rs 2 lakh per person in Goa, three times the state’s budget and three times the state’s debt.
“The state government must recover this through all means like attaching Sesa Ghor and Cidade de Goa as well as other real estate assets from the mining companies, who mined illegally for five years”, he quipped.
In addition, said Dr Alvares, the state should also now take steps to recover Rs 35,000 crore mentioned by Shah Commission in its report, from the mine owners, who mined illegally.
The Goa Foundation environmentalist then adds to it Rs 4500 crore, which the state will get as proceeds of the ongoing e-auction of the ore dumps of around 15 million tonnes.
“This amount will be more than enough for Goa government to run the state and prosper without bowing before anybody”, suggested Dr Alvares.
AAP & GF Should Demand, First Recover 35 Thousand Corers And Then Re-Start Mining. Mining Income Must Go In The Hands Of Goans Through Swaraj Act.