Making it clear that guilty, irrespective of their position or allegiance, would not be spared in case of illegal mining, Punjab local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday said that the Cabinet Sub-Committee on mining would shortly submit its report to the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
“The Cabinet Sub-Committee would expose every wrong doing, if any, in this field and recommend stern action against the guilty,” said Sidhu who is also one of the three members of the panel. Manpreet Badal and Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa are the other two. He said that for submitting a foolproof report, they would approach all the stakeholders in the field of mining and listen to them before filing the report. “I pledge that nobody, even the politicians, officials or cops will be spared if their role will be found in the illegal mining in the State,” he said in response to media queries pointing at the allegations of the involvement of some of the Congress MlAs and a Minister for patronising the illegal mining in the state.
He added, “I assure you, everybody, whosoever, will be found connected with illegal mining will be named in the report, which will be submitted directly to the Chief Minister within a month after the upcoming budget session.”
“We will submit the report to Chief Minister and it is up to him (CM) how he moulds it...But our recommendations will be strong and stern,” he added. Sidhu revealed that the committee may recommend the constitution of a Corporation for sand mining, leaving no scope for illegal mining in the state and multiply the revenue of state through mining. “Why can’t the government take over the mining business, which is already operational in some of the states of India and yielded good results as far as collecting the revenue through mining,” he advocated. Sidhu also suggested the imposition of entry tax of the truck loaded with the sands from the adjoining states of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, which are currently coming after paying “goonda tax”.
“As per my knowledge, almost 26,000 trucks are coming from these states and if an entry tax is imposed on them, the state could earn revenue worth hundreds of crores from them,” he said. Making a scathing attack on SAD president Sukhbir Badal, Sidhu said that he has no moral right to hold ‘Poll Khol rallies’ in the state especially when the people of Punjab have given four back-to-back crushing defeats to them within an year.