Corruption cuts across parties
10 Nov 2012 2:05 AM GMT
What was union minister Srikant Jena from Odisha’s Balasore doing all these years when illegal mining was taking place in next door Keonjhar? Presumably, he had known this even as a young minister of state for industry in 1979-1980 in the then Janata Dal-led Orissa (now Odisha) government and later as a union minister of state for small-scale, agro and rural industries during April-November, 1990, again representing Janata Dal. The story of illegal mining in India nearly dates back to the country’s early mining history under private ownership. Miners always encroached upon the land outside the leased area, destroyed forests and environment, ruthlessly displaced Adivasis, understated production and profit to cheat the respective state and central governments on levies and taxes and bribed inspectors.
The tradition continues. The methodologies of managing and expanding illegal mining remain the same. Only the scale of operation has hugely expanded over the years. All it takes to operate illegal mines is to keep bribing regularly those running village panchayats, district administration, police, forest department, state and central government inspectors and politicians of all hues in power, irrespective of their party affiliations. Few would know this better than Srikant Jena, former Janata Dal chief whip in Parliament turned a Congress MP, who holds a portfolio that has nothing to do even remotely with mining. Initiated into active politics while young by the late Biju Patnaik, one of the founders of Janata Dal, in 1977, Jena’s dislike for his son, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), is common knowledge. But, this can’t be held against Jena for sharing his personal account of the extent of illegal mining in Orissa although only after the Odisha government had slapped large fines, combining Rs 58,000 crores, on companies mining iron ore illegally in the state. The timing of his allegation of a Rs 4,00,000 crore mining fraud, several times bigger than Goa and Karnataka fraud estimates, coincides with the repeat visit of a large inquiry team representing the Justice M P Shah Commission, mandated to look into illegal mining in states, and the Congress party’s renewed attack on the Opposition on political corruption issues.
Incidentally, one part of the Shah Commission report on Goa mining, which is now before Parliament, indicted Digambar Kamat, Goa’s Congress chief minister between 2007 and 2012, reaffirming the fact that illegal mining and corruption transcend the party lines. Like Jena, Kamat too had a background of divided political loyalties. He served three governments in Goa – two led by Congress and one by BJP. And, all his 10 years in the government, he held the mining portfolio and ‘abused’ his power to help certain companies and individuals amass wealth, the Commission report had pointed out. The disease is deep rooted involving too many organs and checkpoints. Mining is in the joint list under the Indian constitution, with both the central and state governments enjoying legislative powers. Thus, no party can be held singularly responsible for illegal mining.
For instance, Jena may be aware of the case of the Rashmi group of companies, consisting among others Orissa Metaliks, Rashmi Metaliks, Rosemary Sponge and Rashmi Cement. It is mainly an Odisha centric group, having units also at Kharagpur and Jhargram in West Bengal only a few kilometers from Jena’s Balasore, which has been under lens for alleged illegal mining. The group has cases pending before the court, the police, the railway authorities, income tax department, excise authorities and the CBI. There had been several national and regional media stories about these cases. But, the business group seems to survive them all to grow at a phenomenal rate – from around Rs 100 crore to Rs 1,000 crore in annual turnover in just about five years.
The illegal and slaughter mining became so rampant in the 1960s that the entire mining sector was nationalised by the then Congress government, headed by Indira Gandhi, leaving some select mines held by business houses such as the Tatas (coal and iron ore), Birlas (Bauxite) and a few others. One wonders what would the Shah Commission say, if it had a say in the matter of the latest overruling of former union environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s official rejection in July 2011 of the allocation of 1,182.35 hectares of forest land at the Mahan coal block in MP for captive mining by the Ruias of Essar Power and Aditya Birla group-led Hindalco Industries by the all powerful group of ministers (GoM), headed by Pranab Mukherjee, now India’s President.
In fact, corruption in India cuts across political parties. The police, taxmen, departmental administrators and inspectors, district administration, lower judiciary and bureaucracy act as conduits. They all are accomplices to crime and corruption. The specific example of undisturbed operations of the Orissa mining group, Rashmi, despite so many charges of irregularities, FIRs with the police, CBI enquiry into involvement of railways and excise department officials in duping the exchequer and media glare, shows how the corruption octopus spreads its tentacles to protect the mastermind. [IPA]
The tradition continues. The methodologies of managing and expanding illegal mining remain the same. Only the scale of operation has hugely expanded over the years. All it takes to operate illegal mines is to keep bribing regularly those running village panchayats, district administration, police, forest department, state and central government inspectors and politicians of all hues in power, irrespective of their party affiliations. Few would know this better than Srikant Jena, former Janata Dal chief whip in Parliament turned a Congress MP, who holds a portfolio that has nothing to do even remotely with mining. Initiated into active politics while young by the late Biju Patnaik, one of the founders of Janata Dal, in 1977, Jena’s dislike for his son, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), is common knowledge. But, this can’t be held against Jena for sharing his personal account of the extent of illegal mining in Orissa although only after the Odisha government had slapped large fines, combining Rs 58,000 crores, on companies mining iron ore illegally in the state. The timing of his allegation of a Rs 4,00,000 crore mining fraud, several times bigger than Goa and Karnataka fraud estimates, coincides with the repeat visit of a large inquiry team representing the Justice M P Shah Commission, mandated to look into illegal mining in states, and the Congress party’s renewed attack on the Opposition on political corruption issues.
Incidentally, one part of the Shah Commission report on Goa mining, which is now before Parliament, indicted Digambar Kamat, Goa’s Congress chief minister between 2007 and 2012, reaffirming the fact that illegal mining and corruption transcend the party lines. Like Jena, Kamat too had a background of divided political loyalties. He served three governments in Goa – two led by Congress and one by BJP. And, all his 10 years in the government, he held the mining portfolio and ‘abused’ his power to help certain companies and individuals amass wealth, the Commission report had pointed out. The disease is deep rooted involving too many organs and checkpoints. Mining is in the joint list under the Indian constitution, with both the central and state governments enjoying legislative powers. Thus, no party can be held singularly responsible for illegal mining.
For instance, Jena may be aware of the case of the Rashmi group of companies, consisting among others Orissa Metaliks, Rashmi Metaliks, Rosemary Sponge and Rashmi Cement. It is mainly an Odisha centric group, having units also at Kharagpur and Jhargram in West Bengal only a few kilometers from Jena’s Balasore, which has been under lens for alleged illegal mining. The group has cases pending before the court, the police, the railway authorities, income tax department, excise authorities and the CBI. There had been several national and regional media stories about these cases. But, the business group seems to survive them all to grow at a phenomenal rate – from around Rs 100 crore to Rs 1,000 crore in annual turnover in just about five years.
The illegal and slaughter mining became so rampant in the 1960s that the entire mining sector was nationalised by the then Congress government, headed by Indira Gandhi, leaving some select mines held by business houses such as the Tatas (coal and iron ore), Birlas (Bauxite) and a few others. One wonders what would the Shah Commission say, if it had a say in the matter of the latest overruling of former union environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s official rejection in July 2011 of the allocation of 1,182.35 hectares of forest land at the Mahan coal block in MP for captive mining by the Ruias of Essar Power and Aditya Birla group-led Hindalco Industries by the all powerful group of ministers (GoM), headed by Pranab Mukherjee, now India’s President.
In fact, corruption in India cuts across political parties. The police, taxmen, departmental administrators and inspectors, district administration, lower judiciary and bureaucracy act as conduits. They all are accomplices to crime and corruption. The specific example of undisturbed operations of the Orissa mining group, Rashmi, despite so many charges of irregularities, FIRs with the police, CBI enquiry into involvement of railways and excise department officials in duping the exchequer and media glare, shows how the corruption octopus spreads its tentacles to protect the mastermind. [IPA]
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