The Goa State Pollution Control Board has reason to believe that there is pollution in Vasco due to the coal handling at Mormugao Port Trust and the transportation of coal through the town. The Mormugao Municipal Council also believes the same and has even banned transportation of coal through the town. But the MLA of Mormugao, who is also the Power minister, feels there is no coal pollution occurring at the port or in the town. Given that other authorities have pointed out to coal pollution, the minister is either totally cut off from the reality of the town or is feigning ignorance for reasons that are, at this point of time, unknown.
Milind Naik, who has been elected as MLA of Mormugao said, “Overall if general public has any complaint with regards to coal pollution, if people think that there is need to take action against the two major companies presently handling coal at MPT and if it is proved that the pollution due to coal has exceeded its limits then I will surely stand by with my people.” This statement came just two weeks after the Mormugao Municipal Council adopted a resolution to stop coal and bauxite transportation through the town’s streets. The Council adopted this resolution after the proposal was placed before the Council by Vasco MLA Carlos Almeida, who is a colleague of Milind Naik in the party and in the Assembly.
About ten days before that Goa State Pollution Control Board had issued show cause notices to MPT, Adani and Jindal seeking reasons why the consent to operate granted to them should not be revoked in light of the environmental pollution. GSPCB, that had been monitoring the ambient air quality, had found that on 14 of 24 occasions the pollution in the air had been above permissible levels. The issue had also been raised in the a last week and the government had admitted that air pollution levels were higher than permissible in the town. Yet, the minister and MLA of the area, wants proof that pollution levels exceed the their limits, before he stands by the people.
For the people of Mormugao and Vasco the coal dust pollution problem is not new, it’s over a decade and half old, ever since the port began handling coal in 2000, but somehow the authorities have always attempted to play down the pollution problem, with the chairman of the Pollution Control Monitoring Committee even declaring Vasco free of coal dust pollution in 2004. It was then that MMC extended its support to the people’s agitation on the pollution problem. The matter even reached the courts with the High Court of Bombay in Goa, in March 2009, asking the Goa State Pollution Control Board to periodically monitor the ambient air quality of the town. In 2012 the board even ordered that coal handling be stopped at berth numbers 10 and 11. Between 2012 and 2015, GSPCB has served several notices to MPT and the companies handing coal at the port, the latest being in December. What further proof that coal dust pollution is occurring in Vasco, and that it is above permissible levels, does the minister require? Should an international agency be called in to determine the pollution levels before the minister acts?
Milind Naik’s statement is yet one more example of just how far from reality and people’s issues this government has shifted. Coal dust could blacken the town of Vasco, but this would still not be visible to the minister, who has turned blind to the sufferings of the people, his own constituents who he will turn to when he goes about seeking their votes in about a year’s time. Complaints of the pollution have been coming for years, but the deaf ears of this government haven’t heard them, forcing the residents of the port town of Vasco to continue suffering from the increasing coal dust.
