The granite scam was a corruption scandal that occurred in Tamil Nadu, India. [1] It gained notoriety after former civil servant of Madurai Ubagarampillai Sagayam wrote a letter to the chief secretary of the State Industries Department [2] on 19 May 2012, reporting major violations by many granite quarries in the Madurai district, estimating a loss of more than sixteen thousand crore rupees (~US$2.5 billion) to the state exchequer.
Some officials of the state-owned Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN) were accused of colluding with companies such as Mojang, allowing them to commit violations. [3]
Eighteen teams of officers created by the Madurai Collector, Anshul Mishra, started inspections on 2 August 2012, covering 175 quarries in the district. After, P. R. Palanisamy of PRP Exports and Panneer Mohamed (owner of Madura Granites in Melur) handed themselves over to the police. [4] The state government suspended nine people, including a tehsildar and deputy tehsildar in Madurai. [5] A senior clerk of Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN) was arrested. [6] A representation made by Mishra to the chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi sought an inquiry by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) into the roles of public servants in this scandal. [7] After this exposure, the Tamil Nadu Government, worked with the Income Tax Department to carry out raids on other quarries across the state.[ citation needed ]
The initial report sent by the Madurai collector at that time, Sagayam, placed the losses to the State government at 16,000 crore rupees. Some of the RTI (Right to Information) activists claimed that the losses could be estimated at, around 1 lakh crore rupees. [8]
P. R. Palanisamy, owner of PRP Exports and a billionaire with political connections, was arrested and his company was sealed. [8] Olympus Granites, allegedly owned by Durai Dayanidhi, son of former Union Minister of Chemicals, M. K. Azhagiri, was also accused of illegal quarrying. [8] The report submitted by U. Sagayam stated that 84 private quarries had violated license conditions and taken part in illegal mining. [9]
Palanichamy (age 60), his sons P. Senthil Kumar (37) and P. Suresh Kumar (31) and son-in-law A. Maharajan (25) filed anticipatory bail applications with the Madurai bench of the Madras high court apprehending arrest in a case registered by the Keelavalavu police station. [10] Dayanidhi Azhagiri also filed an anticipatory bail petition with the high court bench. [10] After anticipatory bail was granted, Azhagiri surrendered before Melur court on 14 December 2012. [11]
2012
2014
2015
{{cite news}}
: |last=
has generic name (help)Thalikkottai Rajuthevar Baalu, better known as T. R. Baalu, is an Indian politician. He is currently the MP of Lok Sabha of the Sriperumbudur constituency, elected five times since 1996 from Chennai South and Sriperumbudur. He is a leader of the DMK party and is known for his political loyalty, having been in the party since 1957. He is now the Treasurer of DMK, elected unopposed on 3 September 2020. He earlier served as the Principal Secretary of the DMK Party from August 2018 to January 2020.
Tamil Nadu Police is the primary law enforcement agency of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is over 150 years old and is the fifth largest state police force in India. Tamil Nadu has a police-population ratio of 1:632. The Director General of the Tamil Nadu police is Shankar Jiwal.
Melur is the Northern entrance of Madurai district. It is the town and municipality in the Madurai North in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Melur Old Name is Called Naduvi Nadu. The name Melur name comes from "Mela Nadu". Melur is called Thaigramam. It is the biggest taluk within the Madurai District. As of 2011, the town had a population of 40,017. Melur is an agricultural land in Madurai and the climate around the area is tropical.
Andimuthu Raja is an Indian politician from Tamil Nadu, who serves as Member of Parliament for the Nilgiris constituency and the deputy general secretary of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. He was a member of the 15th Lok Sabha representing the Nilgiris constituency of Tamil Nadu and had been elected to house four times since 1996. Raja is an advocate by profession and he did his master's degree from Government Law College in Tiruchirappalli.
Muthuvel Karunanidhi Alagiri, commonly known as M. K. Alagiri, is an Indian politician from Tamil Nadu and was a Union Cabinet Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers from 28 May 2009 to 20 March 2013. He is the second son of the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi and his second wife Dayalu Ammal and the head of South Zone of Dravida Munnetra Kazagham.
Saravana Stores, founded in 1969, is a chain of retail stores in India. It is the largest family owned business retail chain in India. It is the first store to introduce Aadi Thallupadi sale concept.
Nainar Nagendran is an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state of Tamil Nadu.
Dhayanidhi Azhagiri is an Indian Tamil cinema producer and distributor. He is the owner of the Cloud Nine Movies banner. His grandfather was M. Karunanidhi, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. His father is M. K. Alagiri, the former Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers.
Sugunapuram Palanisamy Velumani, born 10 May 1969, is an Indian politician and current Member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from Thondamuthur state assembly constituency. He is a prominent politician of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. He has won the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections in 2006, 2011, 2016 & 2021 as an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam candidate. He was previously the Minister for Municipal Administration, Rural Development, Law and Implementation of Special Programme. He is currently serving as the Headquarters Secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from 13 July 2022.
U. Sagayam is a former career Indian civil servant who formerly served as Vice Chairman of Science City Chennai. During his career, he served both in Indian Administrative Service, as officer in the Tamil Nadu cadre and Central Secretariat Service.
The Karunanidhi family are an Indian political family who have had considerable influence in the politics and cinema of Tamil Nadu. The most notable member of the family was M. Karunanidhi who was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for five terms and was the DMK party leader from 1969 till 2018.
Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited (TAMIN) (Tamil: தமிழ் நாடு கனிம நிறுவனம் (டாமின்)) is a state-government undertaking of Government of Tamil Nadu located in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the authority and contractor of granite and stone quarries in Tamil Nadu. TAMIN received the national e-governance award for developing Quarry Management System (QMS) at the 18th national e-governance conference held at Gandhi Nagar in Gujarat 2015.
The Dinakaran attack was a firebomb attack by M. K. Alagiri's supporters on 9 May 2007 on the Madurai office of Dinakaran, a Tamil language newspaper, which resulted in the deaths of three people. The attack was a response to a survey published by Dinakaran on who people preferred as the future heir of M. Karunanidhi, chief of the political party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). During mass protests throughout the region, the offices of the newspaper were firebombed and two press employees and a private security guard died. 17 people were charged by the Central Bureau of Investigation, but were all acquitted by the district court. Dayanidhi Maran resigned from the Union Cabinet, where he had been the minister for communications and information technology, as a result of the controversy surrounding the attack, which created a rift between him and DMK.
Savukku is an anonymous, whistle blowing website. The website has been called the Tamil's WikiLeaks. The site publishes articles in Tamil and English. It is believed to be run by Savukku Shankar alias achimuthu shankar, a former lower division clerk in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms in Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption(DVAC).
Keezhavazhavu is a village in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, India. It is located 43 kilometres (27 mi) from Madurai. It is known for two hillocks called Panchapandavar Malai or Panchapandavar Padukkai which contains ancient Jain sculptures and stone beds, and another is Sakkarai peer oliulla Mountain. It has a cave.
The Aavin milk scam involved continuous diversion of supply vans from various districts midway on the route to Chennai and diluting with water. Aavin is the co-operative milk society of the state government of Tamil Nadu, India. The scam was found out on 19 August 2014 when police investigated the van from Narayanapuram village that was carrying empty milk cans that left Tiruvannamalai chilling centre bound to Chennai. Following the news, the state minister for milk was stripped of his post, nine Aavin officials were suspended and the chief suspect, Vaidyanathan, was arrested. The initial estimate of the losses have been valued at one per cent of the total ten lakh litres, amounting to ₹23 lakhs a day.
Panchami land is the assigned land which was distributed for Dalits in Tamil Nadu during the British rule in 1892. It can neither be sold nor re-classified.
C. Vijayabaskar is an Indian politician from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party (AIADMK), and the Health minister of Tamil Nadu from 2011 to 2021. He is a member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly for the Viralimalai constituency, from where he won elections in 2011, 2016 and 2021. He was previously elected from Pudukkottai constituency in 2001.
Madurai Metro, is a proposed rapid transit system for Madurai, Tamil Nadu. It arose from a Madurai Metrolite system, part of a major expansion of public transport in the city and one of the projects devised by the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J.Jayalalithaa.
Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption is an apex governmental body in Tamil Nadu to address governmental corruption. The Government of Tamil Nadu constituted this State Vigilance Commission headed by a Vigilance Commissioner in 1964.