PANJIM: As the State government gears up to regularise iron ore mining dumps lying outside the lease area, the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has sought details of ore reject dumps present in the forest areas of the State.
The Dr Pramod Sawant-led cabinet had in the last week of December, 2021 approved amendment to the dump policy to allow removal of minerals from the waste, lying outside lease boundaries, in government and private place.
The policy ‘Mineral rejects/ sub-grade ore/byproduct’ was notified in January, last month.
The Regional Empowered Committee (REC), Bengaluru, during its meeting held on February 17, directed the State government to produce data on number of mining dumps in the forest areas and also whether any amount of such dumps have been disposed off.
The REC also sought to know the procedure adopted by the government while disposing off the application or direct rejects from the forest areas.
The REC during its meeting noticed that a mining company failed to clear the reject kept in the forest area for more than 40 years in Dharbandora. Despite forest clearance granted to the company to clear the dump in 2007 and in 2016, only part of the reject was removed.
The mining firm has further sought permission to keep the mining rejects in the 4.9 ha of forest patch.
“REC noted that the ore rejects are kept in the forest area for more than 40 years. Even though clearance was given under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, in 2007 and one extension in 2016, the user agency has removed only part of the rejects till date,” the committee has stated.
“The user agency claimed inability to clear the dump initially due to global recession (2017), followed by the blanket ban on all mining-related activities by the SC, and later the COVID-19 pandemic,” the committee added.
Stating that there is no provision to grant extension or renewal in permission to keep the mining reject dump in the forest, as there is no mining lease, REC recommended that the user agency may be directed to submit a fresh online proposal, which shall be examined by the State government in the light of the provisions of Goa Mineral Policy 2013 and policy on mineral rejects/sub-grade ore/byproduct notified in January 2022, the committee said at its meeting on February 17.
