Team Herald
PANJIM: The Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM) has welcomed support from All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) to their proposals on mining.
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GMM is a single issue movement, which is by policy and not one aligned with political parties. Reportedly, GMM has asked parties to endorse and incorporate the GMM Manifesto into their manifestos for the Goa Assembly elections of 2022.
“Both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Goa Su-Raj Party have supported our proposals in the past. However, we particularly welcome the level of detail and commitment expressed by the TMC in support of the proposals of Goa Foundation and the GMM Manifesto over recent days and we hope the TMC will faithfully implement all the actions advocated by us,” said GMM. GMM said that the people of Goa have lost a great deal due to the manner in which iron ore mining has been conducted in the State under successive Governments, over several decades.
“This has resulted primarily from a system in which the government, at its sole discretion, has granted mining leases to certain parties without conducting auctions or indeed without employing any kind of competitive bidding process. Consequently, the revenue to the state has been minimal, coming primarily from a ‘royalty’ fee calculated as a very small percentage of the deemed value of the ore mined,” said GMM in the statement they had issued on Friday.
“The loss to the people has been compounded by successive governments failing to recover identified revenue leakages due to other forms of illegality committed by lease-holders such as mining above designated limits, mining during times when it was not permitted, mining in areas outside the boundaries of leases, dumping in non-designated areas, and so on. Furthermore, whatever small amounts were earned by the state have been spent by it, leaving no money for future generations of Goans,” GMM added.
The principal features of this approach involve three aspects.
The first part is that mining, either directly by the State, or by parties who are granted leases through a fair and transparent auction process, which attracts a large number of bidders – thus securing high premiums. The second is that the proceeds of such mining or auctions being invested in a professionally managed fund, for perpetuity, with the real earnings of the fund being distributed annually, also in perpetuity, to the people of Goa through a dividend. Finally, the third part is that the recovery of the proceeds of illegal mining done in the past, with these amounts also being invested in the fund.
Vishal Rawlley, member of GMM said, “We wholeheartedly support the TMC in these pledges. We also encourage other political parties to both give serious thought to this pressing issue which could make a huge difference to the lives of Goans for generations to come, and to express their views in a similarly detailed and meaningful manner.”
