Liberalisation has led to 'Corporate Mafia': Lokpal bill draft committee member Prashanth Bhushan

BANGALORE: The biggest threat to democracy today is " corporate mafia" brought about by liberalisation, leading to public resources being entrusted to private enterprises which are not transparent and are solely interested in profits, activist lawyer Prashanth Bhushan said on Sunday.

"In the guise of liberalisation, a new kind of business has been created - privatisation - where public resources whether it is forest, water, spectrum or wealth of public sector organisations are entrusted to private enterprises where there is no transparency, value of assets is unlimited and profits as high as 90 per cent," he said.

This, Bhushan said, has led to coming up of 'corporate mafia, the biggest threat to democracy today.

Public-private partnerships have fuelled enormous incentives for corruption, Bhushan one among the 10-member Lokpal panel, alleged.

Referring to the "mining mafia" of Reddy brothers in Karnataka, he alleged that mining leases of strategic minerals in forests and critical areas have been given to their units, besides private mining firms in the last nine years, in violation of government policy.

"Over 250 such mining leases were granted in the state without any transparency or public auction", he said.

He alleged that mineral resources had been exploited at a rate which will see everything exhausted in 20 years.

"The mining mafia has made the state government change its policy at the expense of public exchequer, ecology, common man and equity" he said.

More than two thirds of iron ore mined in Karnataka is exported to China and other countries, he alleged.