Shah Commission is wrong; mining scam only around Rs 100 cr: Parrikar
Panaji, July 25 : The Justice M.B. Shah Commission's estimate of Goa's mining scam being a whopping Rs 35,000 crore is based on a wrong survey and its real extent is unlikely to be more than Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Wednesday.
"The Shah Commission report is based on survey carried out by hand-held gadgets... They did not do a proper survey. They should have done a proper survey," Parrikar told the assembly during Question Hour in reply to a question by former Chief Minister and Congress legislator Luizinho Faleiro.
Parrikar, who holds the mines portfolio, said the Commission had estimated that lease boundaries had been shifted by mining companies and an additional 580 odd hectares of land was appropriated by them.
But a detailed survey conducted by the state government has revealed that only around 10 hectares of land had been encroached upon by the mining companies, he added.
"The Shah Commission survey is wrong," Parrikar said, adding that the total value of the ore extracted does not represent a loss to the state government, thus lowering the actual loss estimated by the Commission.
"Value of the ore is not loss to the government. The loss to the government is of the royalty (on ore extracted)," Parrikar said.
He also said that the component of revenues earned by the mining sector in Goa's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was only five per cent in 2018, in comparision to 2012, when it used to be 17 to 18 per cent.
Mining was stopped in Goa by a series of bans by the state and central governments, as well as by the Supreme Court in 2012.
Goa's GDP is approximately Rs 70,000 crore.
Parrikar also said that early resumption of mining in Goa, which was banned in February, was one of the top priority of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in the coastal state.
The mining issue has been hanging fire in Goa, every since the apex court banned extraction and transportation of iron ore from 88 mining leases from March, while also directing the state to re-issue mining leases.
The is the second time is less than a decade that all mining in the state has come to a standstill.
The 2012 ban was later lifted by the apex court in 2014, but the court was forced to impose the fresh restrictions while slighting the state government for messing up with the lease renewal processes.
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LPG crisis: Karnataka temples gear up to stock wooden logs for ‘Prasada’
Bengaluru (PTI): Temples in Karnataka have started preparations to stock wooden logs fearing that the LPG shortage could hamper the ‘Prasada’ preparation and distributions to the devotees.
The looming LPG crisis in the state in the wake of Iran-Israel conflict has made the temple managements jittery.
According to the Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas Federation (AKHTAF) president M S Venkatachalaiah, there is no immediate crisis in the temples.
“We have LPG cylinder stock that can last for a week but if this scarcity continues then there will be a problem in serving Prasada (offerings to the deity) to the devotees,” AKHTAF president said.
He added that many temples in the state have started stocking wooden logs to overcome the LPG crisis.
“Our temples have started preparing to store wooden logs to prepare Prasada though currently we don’t have a problem, at least for a week,” Venkatachalaiah told PTI.
Another priest working in a temple belonging to the state Endowment Department said the temples may have to go back to the traditional way of cooking as done in the ancient time using wood.
The LPG crisis has not affected the mid-day meal programme for government school students yet, though there was a meeting in the Education Department to find ways to tackle if crisis deepens, sources associated with the Mid-day Meal programme said.
Meanwhile, the largest partner of the Mid-day Meal programme in the country is Akshaya Patra.
The NGO said they do not depend much on LPG gas cylinder.
“The LPG crisis has not affected us. Our kitchens are steam-based, and we generate steam through boilers which run on electricity. That’s point number one. Point number two—gas is used only for very minor things, mainly for seasoning. That is the tadka,” an Akshaya Patra executive told PTI.
According to him, the NGO has has a gas reserves for about nearly one month across India, though gas is used in very small quantities every day.
He pointed out that the Mid-day meal programme will not be affected because in one or one-and-a-half weeks, schools will close owing to summer vacation.
Akshaya Patra feeds 23.5 lakh children across more than 24,000 schools across India, in 16 states and three Union Territories, he said.
