Karnataka Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil, who recently complained to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah that only 7.6 per cent of illegal mining cases were investigated, will head a subcommittee formed to look into cases of illegal mining that took place between 2007 and 2011.
The subcommittee was formed on Wednesday at a special meeting of Karnataka’s cabinet held at Nandi Hills, Chikkaballapur district.
Addressing a news conference following the meeting, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar noted that Patil was the chairman of a subcommittee during the previous Congress government that looked into these cases. “He had found several shortcomings. There were also suggestions on how to recover the losses suffered,” he said.
The cabinet has sought a report from Patil on the measures to be taken about these cases to protect the state’s interests, Shivakumar said. The subcommittee will submit the report in a month.
It also decided to extend the tenure of the Lokayukta Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing mining cases by a year starting July 1.
According to sources, the SIT was dealing with 69 cases and had to file supplementary chargesheets of 12 cases being investigated by it.
In a letter dated June 18, Patil said that between 2007 and 2011, politicians and bureaucrats “systematically looted the state’s wealth”. He estimated that this caused a loss of Rs 1.5 lakh crore to the exchequer.
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Only 7.6 per cent of the illegal mining cases are investigated and only 2 per cent of the cases have seen closure, he said, demanding investigations into the remaining 92.4 per cent, punishment for the accused, and recovery.
He also said the SIT looking into the few cases had not made any progress owing to administrative delays.