Der hai, andher nahi : CM

Sandesh Prabhudesai
16 May 2001  

"Khuda ke ghar mein der hai, andher nahi", quipped chief minister Manohar Parrikar, reacting to the arrest of former power minister Mauvin Godinho during the Congress regime.

Following the high court verdict last month, the police acted on a complaint filed by Parrikar on 13 May 1998 when he was the opposition MLA. He had exposed the multi-crore power rebate scandal, building up his image as an intelligent fighting MLA.

"If I had not made the noise, the scandal could have swindled minimum Rs 60 crore", claims Parrikar. Besides filing a police complaint, he had also raised the issue in the Assembly on 20 March earlier.

His actions had however compelled the then Congress government led by Pratapsing Rane to suspend the notification. The police have now found that around Rs nine crore were exempted for 210 industries within two years.

The major amount of it is Rs 1.92 crore from the Mormugao Steel Plant and the fibre glass plant of Binani to the tune of Rs 1.12 crore. Though these plants still exist, most of the steel rolling mills, who benefited from it, have already wound up their business.

"We will send recovery notices to all the industries", says the chief minister. He is however not sure how many of these industries still exist in the state.

Besides some of these industries, the police are also finding out about those officials who conspired with Godinho to issue these two illegal notifications. "The then electrical chief engineer Nagarajan is the co-conspirator in it", states Parrikar.

Godinho created an extra high tension category by issuing one notification in February 1996, giving benefit to the several industries like steel rolling mills who used power as the raw material.

Another notification issued in August changed the words 'applied for availing' to 'applied or availed' on or before 1 October 1991, changed date of power tariff from '1988' to 'present rates' and brought authority to decide about the power rebate from industries department to the power department.

Denying the charge that he is taking political revenge against the Congressman, Parrikar in fact expressed satisfaction that justice is catching up in his regime.

Police cases are also filed against Congress leaders like Luizinho Faleiro's wife Rachel in an alleged land scam, Dayanand Narvekar in cricket ticket scam and Somnath Zuwarkar in the bank scam, besides Congress district secretary Khemlo Sawant in attempting to bribe BJP legislator to split from the ruling party.

When asked whether more arrests are expected in the coming days following Godinho, Parrikar says it would depend on how efficiently the police investigate into these cases. "I am not interfering into it", he claimed.

Read earlier report

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