The Madras High Court directing IAS officer U. Sagayam to go into illegal mining of minerals in Tamil Nadu has brought back the focus on a scam that had receded backstage after the transfer of Anshul Mishra as Madurai Collector.
While Mr. Sagayam is credited with blowing the lid off the large-scale scam, Mr. Mishra, through follow-up action, exposed the serious nexus between some in the government machinery and the miners.
Modern gadgets, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, were used to measure the stones quarried by operators in 175 quarries. In all, 94 quarries were sealed during Mr. Mishra’s tenure. Over a million cubic metres of granite slabs was kept ready for auction.
The scam took a political twist when the name of the then Union Minister, M.K. Alagiri’s son, Durai alias Dayanithi Alagiri, came up. The allegation was that he was a director of Olympus Granites and influenced officials of the Mines Department in many ways and suppressed the actual earnings.
A senior official privy to the investigation said the legal process itself had slowed down the action against the illegal miners.
When show-cause notices were served on such miners asking why action should not be initiated against them, they approached the court and obtained a stay. The same was done for the FIRs filed against some of them. “Only very recently has the government received favourable orders from the court,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
While it would be easier to recover illegally mined granite still present at the quarries and auction them, the tougher job would be to measure the “huge amounts” of granites already sold.
In fact, the official said the miners constantly understated the recovery from mining. For example, for 100 cubic metres of mining in a quarry, the usual recovery of granite shown was as low as 10 per cent. The rest was shown as wastage. But studies conducted during the investigation established that the recovery could be 50 per cent.
“The administration will have to work closely with the Customs to arrive at the actual mining figures by tracking the sales,” the senior official said.
Another aspect that should be probed is how the miners coerced farmers into parting with their land.
However, officials fear Mr. Sagayam may have to do too much in a short span of time. “We understand that he has not only been asked to study granite mines but all mines. For this, he will need the full support of the official machinery.”
Tamil Nadu also witnessed a beach sand mining scandal in recent times. A probe by IAS officer Gagandeep Singh Bedi was ordered into it.
