TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its ruling on lifting the ban it had slapped on the iron ore mining in Goa on October 5, 2012 after the Justice MB Shah Commission brought out rampant illegal mining in the State in one of its reports to the Centre.
The 3-judge Special Bench, headed by Justice AK Patnaik perused the second interim report of the 6-member expert committee for the macro environmental impact assessment it had set up last November and briefly heard the parties on the committee’s findings before reserving its verdict. It also took on record a 3-member monitoring committee it had set up to observe e-auction of the excavated iron ore it permitted in November to the Goa Government.
The Court did not fix any date for its ruling, but the lawyers expect it in less than two weeks as the judges have been expressing anxiety in various hearings over the mining activities lying closed for so long, affecting large number of people. It set up the expert committee only to suggest how fast the mining can be resumed without any adverse impact on the ecology.
Arguments advanced on Thursday indicate that the mining, if at all allowed, may start only in the next season from September since the Court may be inclined to incorporate the conditions recommended by the expert committee that cannot be met in the short period of hardly two months for mining operations before the monsoon lashes Goa in the first week of June.
The committee has said, “it may not be desirable to start fresh extraction without adequate regulatory and technological measures that ensure restoration of degraded landscapes and ecosystem, and minimise future damages to the environment.” In fact, if the Court goes by its report, its recommendation is rather for the government to take over the mining operations through a mineral corporation or a public limited company.
The two other judges on the Bench were Justices Surinder Singh Nijjar and Fakkir Mohd Ibrahim Kalifulla. The hearing on Monday had to be adjourned since Nijjar was not available.
Lawyers said the court may also pass an order on the monitoring committee reporting the difficulty in exports felt by the person who bagged 1.62 million tonnes of extracted ore lying in the state since the ban was clamped in October. Transportation of the e-auctioned ore has not begun for export since the Mormugao Port Trust is asking too steep fee as the storage charges.
The expert committee has told the Supreme Court in its second interim report that Goa can sustain extraction of iron ore to the tune of 27.5 million tonnes annually, but ideal permissible limit should be to extract 20 million tonnes per annum. It wanted the capping to continue at 20 million tonnes till the scientific study by it is completed, which may take about 12 months more.
“In fact our data shows that mining is sustainable to the tune of 27.5 million tonnes,” the committee said while scaling it down to the permissible limit to 20 million tonnes per annum with adequate monitoring of impact on different ecological and environmental parameters, which will also help it in its future appraisal.
“To eliminate the element of subjectivity, due to the time constraints and limitation of available authentic time series data relating to mineral resources and environmental impact of mining in the State, the committee suggests that mining be permitted to be carried out at the level of 20 million tonnes,” the committee added.
The Supreme Court slapped ban on the iron ore mining on a petition filed by the Goa Foundation of noted local environmentalist Claude Alvares. During the brief hearing, the amicus curiae advocate Harish Salve told the court that it should allow mining up to 20 to 30 million tonnes of iron ore in a year as that seems to be the broad consensus among the expert committee members.
This, however, will mean the iron ore production in Goa reduced to half as it was around 45-50 million tonnes before the ban was slammed.
