Times Of India reported that the scale of the Karnataka mining scam seems to be getting bigger with the estimates of an expert committee suggesting that the alleged robber barons who engaged in illicit mining may have cheated the state of INR 50,000 crore in taxes and other levies.

The mining syndicate which thrived across regimes claimed that it was taking out just 50 million tonnes of iron ore every year whereas inspections showed that in reality, another 30 to 40 million tonnes of ore was illegally mined and siphoned off.

Considering that the recent e auction for just 26.58 million tonnes brought in INR 1,496 in various levies, the loss to the state exchequer works out to INR 7,000 crore every year over the last one decade.

The Supreme Court's environment panel, Central Empowered Committee submitted its report to a bench of Justices Aftab Alam, KS Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar on Thursday and said till July 31, 26.58 million tonnes of iron ore was sold through e auction for INR 6,416 crore.

The report submitted to the court by CEC's member secretary MK Jiwrajika said that "In addition to the sale price, about INR 1,496 crore has been recovered and paid by the monitoring committee to the government INR 606.24 crore as royalty, INR 594.06 crore as forest development charges, INR 270.65 crore as VAT and INR 25.11 crore as CST.”

CEC sources said if the private lease holders had sold the iron ore for INR 6,416 crore, then they would have paid income tax of over INR 2,100 crore to the government. So, along with the various levies, the government would have got almost INR 3,600 crore from the entire transaction.

Before the apex court banned mining completely, private lease holders had declared sale of 50 million tonnes of iron ore per year on an average and inspection showed that another 30 to 40 million tonnes of ore was illegally mined and siphoned off.

If sale of the total 80 to 90 million tonnes of iron ore was shown as legal by the private parties every year, then they would have earned around INR 18,000 crore, over which income tax would have been INR 6,000 crore. In addition, the government would have got nearly INR 1,500 crore as royalty, FDC, VAT and CST. This means the government would have got around INR 7,500 crore every year. But what the government actually got was only around INR 500 crore from the private parties.

Thus, an estimated loss of INR 7,000 crore to the exchequer per year happened for nearly a decade and CEC sources said the entire illegal extraction of iron ore and under-reporting of sale and extraction could have cost the exchequer INR 50,000 crore.

Source - Times Of India

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