Yeddyurappa Explains How They Done It

The CM admits what everyone already knew: CM admits illegal mining in State. But why does he retain some of the responsible mining kingpins in his cabinet? That is the question that he should be answering.  While we wait for that, he also explains how the looting happened: How 30 million tonnes of iron ore was looted from State.  Yawn.  I think we knew that too:

Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa on Friday told the Legislative Assembly that illegal iron ore export had been going on for the last seven years and a whopping 30 million tonnes of ore had been illegally exported from the State.

In his 21-page reply to a weeklong debate on the resignation of the Karnataka Lokayukta and illegal mining in the State, Mr. Yeddyurappa said political parties that formed governments had given mining permits to their party men and relatives and were allowed to “loot” the ore illegally.

He also provides details on the amount of illegal ore exported:

He said illegal export of iron ore was 20,49,961 tonnes in 2003-04; 52,39,528 tonnes in 2004-05; 21,71,492 tonnes in 2005-06; 47,44,645 tonnes in 2006-07; 57,61,048 tonnes in 2007-08; 33,96,126 tonnes in 2008-09 and 71,27,937 tonnes in 2009-10.

Interesting that the all time high was achieved under the BJP government.  Yet, only the small fry will get caught and the bigshots will be protected:  I got only half of what I wanted: Santosh Hegde.  

Speaking of getting something, here is one more big fish that will get away: Nagaraj accuses Mantri Developers of fraud.