CHENNAI:
DMK working president
M K Stalin on Tuesday sought a
CBI probe into the irregularities in mining beach sand for rare minerals in the southern districts of
Tamil Nadu, brought to light by a special team headed by senior bureaucrat Gagandeep Singh Bedi.
Quoting extensively from the 1,170-page report, which was based on inspections carried out by the special team in Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari districts, Stalin estimated that over one crore tonne of beach sand was illicitly mined from 52 lease sites and exported.
The exports were valued at around Rs 1,80,000 crore, Stalin said in a statement. “This indicates astronomical losses to the state exchequer,” he said.
“The state government should immediately recover the royalty losses from the lease holders. If it fails, the Centre should intervene and order a CBI probe into the irregularities,” he said.
According to Stalin, whenever people had raised the issue of irregularities in illicit
beach sand mining for rare minerals leading to over Rs 1 lakh crore, the ruling AIADMK government had brushed that aside. It was only after the Tuticorin district collector wrote to the state government on August 6, 2013 that an investigation headed by Gagandeep Singh Bedi was ordered.
Though attempts were made by V V Minerals and the AIADMK government to stall the investigations and remove Bedi from the task, the Madras high court intervened and prevented it.
“Consequently, Bedi submitted his report on September 17, 2013. But the AIADMK government kept it under wraps. Even though the DMK raised this issue several times in the assembly as well as in public meetings, the government has continued to maintain secrecy over the report for four years,” Stalin charged.
DMK working president M K Stalin 
