BICHOLIM: Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced that he would restart mining in the State within six months of forming the government. He also promised to give land rights to the locals, after meeting the mining dependents at Pale in Sanquelim.
“Mining is stopped in the State for last ten years and the people are doing some petty jobs to meet their daily requirements. We assure that mining would resume in six months of forming the government in the State,” said Kejriwal.
He accused BJP government of lacking will to restart mining in Goa. In his two-day visit to the State, he also met people who are not given their land ownership rights for past many years.
Earlier Chief Minister, Dr Pramod Sawant had stated that his government is sensitive towards the issues of the mining dependents and that forming mining corporation is the only solution to the issue.
The mining workers from Sesa Mining met CM at Ravindra Bhavan under the leadership of Adv Ajay Prabhugaonkar. During the discussion CM said to the workers that the work of forming corporation is being undertaken and assured that mining in the State would resume soon.
CM was inundated with sharp questions. The mining workers demanded that the mining should resume immediately. Prabhugaonkar gave a deadline to resume mining till the end, failing which they would decided to upon their their stand.
The CM said that the first preference would be given to those workers who were in mining and are locals.
Later speaking to media Prabhugaonkar said that the workers are today suffering as they have only 50% salary and that they had time and again asked the CM to look into the matter. “Today we had met the CM as he had given the assurance twice but these assurances failed. We had asked for details of the mining corporation under RTI, but they did not give us, which shows that there is no transparency,” he said.
