Panaji, Oct 7 (IANS) A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report that has unveiled a Rs.3,500 crore illegal mining scam will not be tabled Friday, the last day of the two-day monsoon session of the state assembly. The day's agenda does not list the report.


PAC Chairman Manohar Parrikar had submitted the report to Speaker Pratapsingh Rane Wednesday.

While Leader of Opposition Parrikar hoped that the report would be tabled Friday, after receiving the report, Rane said Wednesday: "I have just received it. I will go through the report. We are in a democracy, so the majority view should be taken into consideration."

Four legislators of the ruling alliance out of the seven-member PAC had not signed the report, Rane said.

The four legislators - three from Congress and one from the Nationalist Congress Party - had refused to sign the report Tuesday.

They said they needed time to study the document, which severely indicts the government.

The PAC report charges several state government agencies including the department of mines, the pollution control board, the forest department and the police, besides central government agencies like the ministry of environment and forests, the Indian Bureau of Mines and the Director General of Mines Safety with turning a blind eye to illegal mining in Goa.

The role of Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, who has been mines minister for a decade now, is also under cloud, although the report does not directly name him.

Speaking in the Goa legislative assembly Wednesday, some hours after submitting the PAC report, Parrikar obliquely laid the mantle of the illegal mining scam on Kamat's head.

"Does the chief minister not want to change situation in mines department at all? He does not want to punish anyone guilty? Any third person would take inference, that he (Kamat) is involved," Parrikar said.

"When he was the chief minister, exports rose from 16 tonnes to 54 tonnes…Production is thrice now. What is legally extracted is 30 million tonnes (of ore). It is perfectly legal, while 20 million tonnes is not legal," Parrikar had said.

The PAC report on illegal mining has triggered a political storm in Goa.

Goa has exported nearly 54 million tonnes of iron ore in the last fiscal year out of which nearly 7 million tonnes is allegedly illegally extracted.