TDP demands White Paper on mining permit status

Hailing the decision of Centre’s decision to cancel permits for exploration of iron ore mines at Bayyaram in Khammam district, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday demanded that the state government to release a `white paper’ on the status of mining permits across the state.

Talking to media persons at NTR Trust Bhavan on Friday, Mr Naidu said that the state government should take steps on the lines of Karnataka, which banned export of mines, to check the mining mafia which is looting thousands of crores of rupees of the state’s natural resources.

Mr Naidu said that despite the Centre’s act of cancellation of the Bayyaram Mining lease and the Opposition’s outcry over the illegal mining of the state’s natural resource by unscrupulous persons, the state government is not acting against the mining mafia.

The former chief minister demanded immediate sacking of Government Advisor KVP Ramachandra Rao by saying that allegations of irregularities against him have been floating around since the reign of late YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

Mr Naidu demanded that the state government recover crores of rupees from the mining mafia which it had looted from mines under Revenue Act.

Mr naidu vowed that his party would launch a relentless fight until the government cancels all mining leases and recover the ill-gotten money accumulated by the mining mafia. If the government wants to call for tenders, it can call them at global level, he said.

The Tdp president said that AICC president Sonia Gandhi was taking steps against the corrupt one at a time after going through a book ‘`Raja of Corruption’ published by his party and gifted to Ms Gandhi.

The Tdp chief urged AICC general-secretary Rahul Gandhi to look into illegal mining issue in Andhra Pradesh.