TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday announced that the State would follow the auction route while granting new iron ore mining lease, but that the existing operating leases would be renewed without following the auction route. (Under the Mines and Minerals Development Regulation (MMDR) Act 1957)
The Chief Minister, who was in New Delhi, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, according to the Chief Minister asked the State to integrate the State mining policy with the Central Mining policy.
“What I have also suggested was that under the MMDR Act there is an auction route for granting any new lease, and the same would be followed by the State,” he said adding that government has cancelled nearly 360 mining leases, over a period of one year for violations of the MMDR Act as well as other rules.
“If tomorrow, government takes a call to grant these leases, then they would be auctioned,” he said, adding that this route is not valid for leases which are operating.
The Chief Minister said that while for coal allocation, the Centre has decided to follow auctioning route, Goa government cannot do the same for the operational mining leases, as Supreme Court has not termed the allocation of iron ore mining leases as illegal but their operation post 2007 as illegal.
Parrikar, also the Mines Minister, expressed the State’s desire to curtail the number of leases, from 90 (operational prior to suspension in September 2012) to 50 mines.
Parrikar said that with a cap of 20 million tonnes, the State has no option but to curtail the existing operational leases. “I don’t think it will exceed 50 out of 90 operational mining leases,” he said, adding that each of the mining leases would be given an annual extraction limit while signing the lease agreement.
“I will cap the extraction at the mining leases level,” he added. Chief Minister said that government is coming out with a notification, next week, wherein the ore to be carried per truck would also be capped.
