Team Herald
BICHOLIM: Voicing their strong opposition to the extraction of iron ore, Mulgao villagers on Sunday marched to the mining block and stopped the activity, complaining that it was creating noise pollution in the village.
After failing to get relief from the government, the villagers assembled at Shree Kelbai Temple premises, in the village, where the locals claimed that extraction of iron ore at night was creating nuisance and causing sound pollution.
A large number of villagers including sarpanch Mansi Kavthankar, deputy sarpanch Gajanan Mandrekar, panchayat members Vishalsen Gad, Suhasini Govekar, Sidhhanath Kalsavkar and Trupti Gad, Shree Kelbai Devasthan Committee president Vasant Gad, and Comunidade of Mulgao president Maheshwar Parab were present.
Annoyed over non-action by the government departments and the Bicholim deputy collector to stop ongoing extraction and in the heat of the meeting, the villagers marched to the mining site and demanded that the night shift be stopped immediately as it disturbing them and causing noise pollution.
Vedanta’s head of north cluster Santosh Mandrekar, who was present at the site, told them that the company’s chief officer was out of station and would return on Monday.
Mandrekar assured the villagers that the company’s chief officer would meet them in the Shree Kelbai Temple premises on Monday, January 27 at 4 pm.
The villagers opined that the mining activity was not benefitting them and that it should be stopped immediately.
“All these years we have suffered due to reckless mining activity,” they said and resolved to march to the site to halt the operations.
Some of the demands of the villagers include demarcation of village boundaries, active mining lease boundaries, buffer zone boundaries; to exclude houses, temples, lakes, paddy fields and plantations from mining blocks as per new mining lease, desilt paddy fields on priority, to release compensation of farmers pending since 2011 and to give arrears of lease rent to Comunidade of Mulgao since nearly 2.21 lakh square metres of area is falling in the mining block.
The villagers have also demanded the desilting of three lakes and construction of retaining walls at these lakes for maintaining natural resources.
THE VILLAGERS DEMAND
Demarcation of village boundaries, active mining lease boundaries, buffer zone boundaries, exclusion of houses, temples, lakes, paddy fields and plantations from mining blocks as per new mining lease, desilting of paddy fields on priority, release of compensation of farmers pending since 2011, arrears of lease rent to Comunidade of Mulgao, desilting of three lakes and construction of retaining walls at these lakes