Indian iron ore corruption scandal spreads to Goa
The Hindustan Times reports that Goa’s mining minister, Digambar Kamat, is being accused by the BJP party and members of his own party for participating in illegal mining.
The website says the Congress is considering various options to avoid a similar situation to what happened in neighbouring Karnataka state, where the ruling BJP party was forced to dump its chief minister after a damning report accused him and other politicians of corruption in the illegal export of iron ore:
Congress sources said the central leadership was “disturbed and concerned” over the allegations against the CM. The sources said the party high command was mulling various options, including replacing Kamat with a person having a clean image, to avoid the embarrassment the BJP had to face in Karnataka.
According to the article, illegal mining in Goa is valued a between R1,200 and R10,000 crore. (a crore is 10,000,000 rupees). Tiny Goa is India’s smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population, but is the richest, with a GDP per capita two and a half times the rest of the country, states Wikipedia.
The Goa state government has recognized the problem of illegal iron ore mining and is considering measures to stop it including the use of RFID tags on mining trucks, The Times of India reports:
The Goa government is examining the possibility of installing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on mining trucks to track the vehicle’s movement carrying iron ore, as a part of the measures to curb transportation of illegal iron ore in the state.
Image of a colonial church in Anjuna Goa from Shutterstock.
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Comments
Deepak
The mafia like operations of politicians and officials making a parallel unofficial system is not present in Goa. Surely though there have been irregularities on which the officials have looked the other way.