Speaking to a delegation of 20 mining stakeholders yesterday he also said that he was collecting data from both State as well as Central labour commissioners to ascertain the exact number of contractual workers engaged in the mining industry and accordingly decide the future course on contract labour in the industry.
After the mining policy is released all leases will be renewed in line with directions received from the High court. The CM also reiterated said that at any cost he would not allow auctioning of the leases to parties other than those already operating in Goa, even as he appreciated the fact that existing mining companies had faithfully paid their royalties during difficult economic crises.
According to him if leases were auctioned then there would be mining mafia in Goa, which would be harmful to Goans and state would not able to handle.
According to the CM, mining operation in Goa should resume by October 15 and he assured them that he will clear all approvals required for immediate resumption of the activity. During the meeting when apprehensions were raised by the GMPF as to how he will manage to restart mining by October 15, he apparently said that he already had several meetings with the Central government and will depute one coordinator dedicatedly for channelizing the processes in MoEF and other related government offices.
The delegation included GMPF convenor Suhas Naik, Raju Mangueshkar, Atul Jadhav (All Goa Barge Owners Association), Mahesh Gawas, Balaji Gawas (Truck Owners Association), Ramesh Sinari, Devanand Parab (Sesa Goa Workers Association ), Pramod Gad, Laxman Dessai (Truck Owners Association) and Anand Naik from Sesa Mining Workers Union.
The GMPF memorandum predominately included points such as transparent mining policy, finalization of mining policy, revoking mining suspension, withdrawing the order of suspension of mining operations, withdrawal of lay-off or retrenchment etc.
GMPF has urged Chief Minister to call upon MoEF to revoke the order of suspension of environmental clearances at the earliest.
GMPF called for protecting the jobs and service-conditions of thousands of mining workers employed in different mining establishments in Goa while allotting fresh mining leases.
Other points discussed were that the mining policy be kept open for discussion in the House on August 18.
