PANJIM: Congress in Goa has asked Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to come clean on the coal issue and state what are the vested interests and who are the people misguiding the minds of the people on the coal issue.
Speaking to the media, Congress MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco appealed to the Chief Minister to stop making allegations and show what are the vested interests involved in coal handling at Mormugao Port Trust (MPT).
Lourenco also that the letter the CM has written to the Union Government objecting the expansion of coal handling terminal at MPT be made public.
Lourenco said that if pollution has reduced by 75 percent than it is not by acts of the government but nature that has come to the rescue. “Since it was the monsoon and because of humidity coal dust settled down and the pollution level was low. Wait and watch what happens from December to June, especially during the summer, the air will become hotter and there will be less moisture and the coal dust will thicken the air due to which people will have to suffer, because of lung infections, allergies, sore eyes etc,” he said.
Lourenco said that it is the BJP that has politicised coal transportation and river nationalisation to divide the people so that private competitors can succeed in making Goa a coal hub.
He said that coal is handled by South West Port Ltd at berth 5A and 6A and by Adani Mormugao Port Terminal Ltd at berth 7. ABG Port Ltd was granted EC on Jan 24, 2001 when there was a BJP government under Prime Minister A B Vajpayee was in power at the centre and BJP-led government under Manohar Parrikar in Goa.
With regards to Adani the proposal to develop berth 7 for coal handling was moved by MPT in 2007. In 2010 the then CM Digambar Kamat wrote to MoEF Minister Jairam Ramesh objecting to expansion of coal handling at MPT. In 2012 when BJP took over, GCZMA granted approval for the project in June 2013 when Parrikar was in power. Since the State government did not press its earlier objection, the EC was granted in 2013.
“It is BJP Government under Parrikar that actually gave incentives to coal handling companies by reducing green cess from 2 percent to 0.5 percent of sale value around September 2014. Congress MLAs had suspected a scam in the government’s decision to cut cess on coal and accused the CM of distributing largess to Karnataka industries with ulterior motives,” Lourenco said.
He said that after Kamat’s letter and Ramesh’s intervention there was no more news on the coal hub. It was only after Parrikar returned to power in 2012 the news on the coal hub resurfaced, he added.
