TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The state government has ordered a scientific survey of boundary of leases including DGP Survey in respect of all mining leases and promised that once the survey is complete action against encroachment and other violation detected shall be initiated, according to the updated Action Taken Report on the Shah Commission of Inquiry report on illegal mining. It says that the survey it will take four to six months.
The Goa Government has also said that “the apprehension about the gap between production and exports in a year construed as rampant illegal mining is not correct,” rationalizing that the gap could be “either due to ore imported from other states or ores from other states exported from Goa’s ports which are not accounted for in local production and not captured by the Department of Mines or due to higher opening stock reported by local producers which was exported along with produce during the year.”
“The export from Goa does not necessarily include local produce during a year alone. Therefore, it would not be prudent to pick up figures of sale/export and production in isolation and attribute mismatch to illegal production and sale causing loss of revenue to the state,” says the ATR.
The Shah Commission had put the illegal iron ore as amounting to Rs 35,000 crore, the BJP before the Assembly elections put the figure at Rs 25,000 and the PAC as Rs 3,500 crore.
The ATR also says that the state government has said that the hand held GPS survey is not accurate enough to precisely identify encroachment as GPS has an inbuilt error in seconds and each second of GPS reading is equivalent to horizontal error of at least 30 mts.
The Shah Commission in its report had said that there was a total encroachment about 2796.24 hectares, out of which iron ore mining as pits is 578.42 hectares.
“The Commission has quantified the loss to the State at approximately Rs 35,000 crore. The Commission has recommended action to be taken for recovery of market cost of the iron ore illegally extracted by encroachments outside lease area,” says the ATR.
The Commission has recommended deterrent punishment by filing criminal cases against the lessees for their criminal misconduct for crossing the lease boundaries and illegally extracting minerals from outside leased areas and also recommended action against the concerned officials of the State DMG as well as Forest Department where forest land is involved in encroachment.
The Union ministry of environment and Forests has issued guidelines under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 it says in the ATR and puts the onus to prevent and initiate appropriate penal action in respect of encroachment on forest land “with the concerned State or Union Territory Governments.”
According to the MoEF, to ensure compliance to the said condition, the RO (Southern Zone), Bangalore of the MoEF vide their letter dated 3rd March, 2009 requested the State Governments, including the State Government of Goa, to take necessary action to demarcate and maintain boundary of all mining leases approved under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.
It was also requested that in case demarcation of the boundary of a mining lease could not be demarcated for any reason, the State Government may take appropriate steps to stop mining in all such mines till their boundary is satisfactorily demarcated.
