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Chandigarh, February 16: Former SAD minister Bikram Singh Majithia on Thursday demanded a CBI inquiry against ‘kattar imaandar’ Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for indulging in an “Rs 400 crore scam in collection of royalty from vehicles carrying sand and gravel into Punjab.
He also sought a probe into reviving the contracts of two sand mining mafia kingpins associated with the previous Congress government one month after they had been terminated.
Accusing Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of heading the royalty scam in league with AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia displayed receipts showing how only a fraction of the Rs 7 per cubic feet loyalty announced by the government on sand was collected by the state government.
He alleged that it clearly indicated underhand collection from inter-state vehicles by the AAP. The SAD leader also disclosed how the new mining policy had given the authority to fix royalty on inter-state vehicles to the Punjab CM. Majithia alleged that a majority of funds collected on this account were going directly to the AAP instead of the state exchequer.
“As many as 2,000 trucks filled with sand and gravel enter Punjab from neighbouring states every day. At least half of the loyalty due from them is being appropriated by the AAP,” he said.
Bikram Majithia said two mining mafia kingpins — Rakesh Chaudhary and Ashok Chandak —had been given charge of mining in Punjab in an “underhand deal with the sole purpose of collecting money for the AAP”.
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The former Punjab minister said after terminating Chaudary’s contract to mine sand in Mohali and Ropar districts on December 21 last year, the AAP government renewed his contract on January 27 this year by awarding him the same zones. “This was done despite four cases being registered against Chaudhary in Ropar district, besides a CBI inquiry marked by the HC after ‘goonda tax ‘ levied by Chaudary was exposed by a Chief Judicial Magistrate in a covert operation”.
Majithia said second contractor Ashok Chandak, who was also extremely close to the Congress high command, had also been issued a termination of his contract on December 21 last year before it was renewed on January 31 last month. He said Chandak had also been awarded the same sites of Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Nawanshehr from which he was mining sand earlier under the Congress regime.
Terming these twin scams as bigger than the Delhi excise policy scam, Majithia said “it is now clear that the Mann sarkar is beiman sarkar which is collecting money to fund election campaigns of the AAP at the cost of Punjab’s exchequer”.
The SAD leader alleged that it was for this reason that the AAP government had deliberately not come out with a mining policy for the last eleven months. “It wanted to do a deal with the mining mafia and has done this now,” he said, adding the AAP government had not allowed anything to come between this deal.
Majithia also questioned why the AAP government had flip-flopped repeatedly on fixing pit head prices of sand. He said the AAP government first raised the price from Rs 5.50 per cubic feet fixed by the Congress government to Rs 9 per cubic feet in August and then reverted back to the old price recently. He alleged that it was clear that this was done under a deal with the mining mafia and this aspect should also be probed.
– PTC NEWS
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