Team Herald
PANJIM: While directing the leaseholders to continue compensatory arrangement of pumping of water for irrigation and drinking purposes to the villagers till June 30, for the very first time, the State Government has admitted that the mining operations, undertaken over the years, have had “distortionary impact” on water streams in the iron ore rich areas.
“Over the years mining operations may have had a distortionary impact on water streams and for last many years, continuous pumping of water emerged as a sort of a compensatory arrangement,” Water Resources Department Principal Chief Engineer Sandip Nadkarni informed during the recent meeting on the mining and safety issue called by the Chief Secretary IAS Dharmendra Sharma.
The Water Resources Department said that the continuous but regulated pumping by mining leases provided water to the treatment plants and were also pumping water into the streams to augment the water supply for irrigation.
“Therefore pumping of water for drinking and irrigation purposes was compensatory arrangement, rather than a mere additional/ voluntary social responsibility,” reads the minutes of the meeting, which are placed before the Bombay High Court at Goa.
During the meeting, the leaseholders were directed to continue the pumping of water for drinking and irrigation purposes till June 30; while WRD has to draft an alternative action plan.
It was informed during the meeting, that WRD has directed the taluka offices to go to the respective sites and get the ground report on water requirements and the pumping activities.
Contrary to the ground report as highlighted by HERALD in its edition dated April 14, the WRD claims that most of the leaseholders are pumping water.
Since 2001, the safety measures are undertaken by the mine owners in the first week of June till June 30.
