PANJIM: In a major relief to Goa government, the Supreme Court has allowed State to handle iron ore dumps- the activity which has been banned since September 2012.
Addressing mediapersons, Advocate General Devidas Pangam said the Supreme Court has accepted the recommendation made by its Expert Committee allowing handling of dumps. “The Expert Committee in its report had recommended dump handling and granted powers to the State to decide on the mechanism for handling and disposing the dumps,” Pangam said.
“The recommendations are accepted. We had filed an Intervention Application before the Supreme Court to decide on the dump handling matter. Accordingly, the order was passed today (Tuesday),” he said.
The Supreme Court through its judgment dated April 21, 2014 had constituted a Six-Member Expert Committee under Dr CR Babu on how the mining dumps in the State of Goa should be dealt with. The Committee had submitted its report in 2015. The other committee members were geologist Dr S C Dhiman, mineralogist Prof B K Mishra, forest officer S Parmeshwarappa and then Secretary, Government of Goa Parimal Rai.
Pangam said the government will work out the mechanism to handle the ore but in most probability, the dumps will be auctioned. “The process will help in generating revenue to the State in form of royalty. The revenue would be pumped-in for development works,” he said.
As per government record, there are 313 dumps in the State of varying size, with a total estimated quantity of 733.72 million tonnes. While the estimation of the quantity is based on the submissions made by individual lease holders in July 2010, the valuation of the dumps is not yet ascertained.
There are total of 139 mining dumps on forest land, of which 95 are in South Goa and 44 in North Goa, the quantity of which is almost 40 per cent of the total iron ore dumps lying in the State.
The largest dump of 61.7 tonnes is at Pale and belongs to mining company Chowgule.