TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: Tearing into the State government’s affidavit (reply), Goa Foundation in its rejoinder, has argued that if the original lessee cannot mine the ore from the mine, then it should be returned to the state instead of being allowed to be mined by a raising contractor.
“Iron ore resource is a public asset. In the act of mining, the said resource is depleted for profits which accrue to the private party to whom the asset is leased,” says the rejoinder, pointing out that the government is only the custodian of that asset, and therefore duty bound to ensure that the public asset is leased to private parties at the highest possible price.
It alleged that most of the major violations would be regularised and continue if the Apex court order was vacated and the state took charge of enquiry and monitoring. These violations of law were enumerated by the Justice Shah Commission of Inquiry and Supreme Court appointed Centrally Empowered Committee.
The petitioner also wanted the Supreme Court to accept the CEC’s recommendation that no mining pit that intersects the ground water will be permitted to operate in future and that an independent investigation be ordered into the “criminal acts that led to defrauding the exchequer of crores of rupees,” expressing its doubt that anyone will be punished by the present regime.
The rejoinder also points out that the government “holds that practically all the violations pointed out by the Shah Commission and the CEC are indeed not violations at all, but mere technicalities which can be regularized;” and that it is “in fact condoning all the mining illegalities which the previous government did not take action on.”
The petitioner argued that it is a contradiction for the government to say that the illegalities occurred during the previous regime and then condone those “very illegalities by not considering them to be serious at all and terming them mere technical violations or by not agreeing that there is an illegality in the first place.”
The rejoinder quotes that Goa government stand was that the illegalities “…reported in the Shah Commission Report all relate to the period of the previous Congress government. The present government is determined to ensure that illegal mining is completely eliminated from the State.”
But it disagrees with the Justice Shah Commission/ CEC on most of the issues wherein the Commission/ CEC have found that there is illegal mining in the State.
The NGO, pointing out that, the State government had claimed that dump mining or extraction of mineral from dumps is not covered under the provisions of the Environment Protection Act and therefore cannot be prevented as the EP Act and the environment clearance order are both silent on extraction of minerals from existing dumps.
The State government also claimed that all charges of mineral ore having been mined in excess of the limits imposed under the Environment Protection Act vanish if one considers that all the excess mining has been extracted of ore from dumps. The State also claimed in its affidavit that dumps could be located outside the lease areas and this was not an illegality.
However, the petitioner disagreed with both positions, terming them as incorrect and “not in public interest.”
“Extraction and transport of ore are also covered by the Environment Protection Act. All ore that is stored in dumps has been extracted from the mine at one time or another. It therefore must fall within production limits imposed on the mine by the EC whenever the lessee pays the royalty for the sale of ore. All EC orders state that the environment clearance order does not permit any change in mining technology or scope without prior consent of the MoEF.”
“Ceilings and caps on production levels become meaningless if unaccounted sources of ore are permitted to enter the market without reference to the limits imposed,” the NGO alleged quoting “In the years of 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, there is large quantity of difference between production (dispatch) under permitted quantum and actual. This excess difference has been conveniently shown as “ore retrieved” from old dumps. On careful examination, it is noticed that such excess production claimed to be from old dumps is actually the ore extracted on proxy from the running mines. Actual minerals were removed from mining pits of regular mines but shown as dump handling. This could not have happened had the State Government, Director of Mines been vigilant enough to monitor and regulate through frequent field inspection. Actual loss in this regard would be submitted in Second Report.”
Agreeing with the State government that, till date, the buffer zone issue is pending resolution before the Supreme Court, Goa Foundation argued that the issue is not whether mining is banned in the 10 km stretch or not, but whether or not the Supreme Court by its order dated 4th December 2006 required the environment clearances granted by the Ministry of Environment to be placed before the Standing Committee of the NBWL for its NOC; and whether or not mines which are located in the 10 km zone ought to obtain the NOC of the Standing Committee of the National Board of Wildlife in order to continue their activities. According to the petitioner the court has directed it to be so.
On mining taking place in catchments areas of reservoirs, rivers, tanks and lakes, Goa Foundation has stated that the government does not have an estimate of the total quantity of water that is removed as a result of mining in the State. Stating that it (Goa Foundation) has done some research and found that no mining should be allowed in the State for the harm being done to a sustainable resource by an unsustainable extractive industry. The total water requirements of the population of Goa (including industry but excluding mining) is 90 billion litres per annum. “There is gross shortfall and several sections of the population do not get regular water even today,” the NGO stated, adding, ‘Compared with the above, the rainwater that falls on mining leases is to the tune of 350 billion litres per annum. Of this, as per figures provided by the Pollution Control Board, 26 billion litres are used by beneficiation plants alone. Most of the water is contaminated by such use (it becomes highly acidic).”
Stating that water from mining pits is pumped out into nullahs to enable mining activity to continue and people living in the villages adjacent to the mines are compelled to make do with this recycled water for agriculture as the ponds, springs and rivulets in their villages from which they once drew clean water for domestic consumption have run dry.
