Was Gujarat govt shielding Bokhiria and company?

DNA: Ahmedabad: Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

What makes the state government keep Porbandar’s mining discrepancies under wraps? What is it afraid of divulging? While replying to dna’s RTI application on the total revenue lost by state due to illegal mining, or the registered cases of illegal mining and penalty collected, etc, state’s geology and mining department gave figures of all the districts, barring Porbandar.

Call it a systematic effort to hide (or at least tone down), the BJP government had been hiding exact details of mining thefts related to Porbandar since the last decade. Are the efforts directed towards shielding the mining mafia prevalent there including BJP leaders like Babu Bokhiria, is what comes to the mind.

First, the RTI application filed in May 2012, remained unanswered for over 13 months. Then, while replying to the application’s query on the FIRs filled between 2002 and 2012, the department failed to mention details of the FIR registered against Babu Bokhiria in the year 2006. However, it did provide facts of all other districts like Junagadh, Amreli, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha and Jamnagar which have substantial illegal mining activities prevalent in their respective areas.

Talking to dna, commissioner, geology and mining department, Gujarat state, T Natarajan said that he wasn’t aware of the application and will find out the status and see that the statistics are provided against the RTI application. There are over 28 RTI applications filed by an RTI activist in Porbandar. The activist had gone for appeal in 12 applications out of the 28 and, in each application, he had asked for details of the mining discrepancies in Porbandar.

It is worth mentioning that if an applicant is not satisfied with the information provided by any government department, he or she can appeal against the decision.

The activist, who is at present facing threat to his life from mining mafias in Porbandar, told dna on condition of anonymity that when the department refused to give him the details he, along with his team members, conducted a survey of the district to get the details of illegal mining themselves.

“According to my primary estimate, there are 300 illegal mines of limestone and 800 illegal mines of building stones, while around 1,800 other small and big mines are operating across the state,” the activist confided to dna.