TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) has notified that existing ore mines would be phased out within the next five years or on expiry of their lease, whichever is earlier.
The MoEF clarified that the recommendations given by the high level working committee have neither put “any fresh restrictions on land use nor impact the continued occupation of land in possession of the local people and affect their day to day activities or normal livelihood.”
An office memorandum issued Friday also says that the recommendations also do not prohibit or restrict any normal activities relating to plantations, agriculture or any other activity except those which have been specifically prohibited or restricted in the eco sensitive and specified areas.
The Ministry has kept the ban on new leases and expansion activities including for red category industries, mining, quarrying, sand mining, thermal power plants, building and construction projects of 20,000 sq m area and above and township and area development projects with an area of 50 ha and above or with built up area of 1,50,000 sq m. It said that a high level committee of the MoEF would be set up to monitor the implementations of the recommendations of the high level working group (HLWG) in a time bound manner. And “relevant steps would be initiated to operationalize the recommendations” of the high level working group.
It is also reiterated that the prohibition of identified categories of projects and activities would apply to new and/or expansion of these activities from the date specified therein.
“The existing projects/activities under these categories may continue, according to law, except for existing mines which should be phased out within the next 5 years or on expiry of their mine lease, whichever is earlier,” the directive says.
Further, after accepting “in-principle” recommendations of the HLWG, K Kasturirangan panel report on Western Ghats that stated that 37 per cent of the biodiversity-rich Western Ghats ~ about 60,000 sq km of the total 1,64,000 sq km ~ be notified as ESZ, Union Ministry Friday said that ‘the boundary of the ESA would be finalized after taking state governments’ view and stakeholders of the region’.
“This OM (official memorandum) supersedes all other OMs issued earlier on the subject,” Ministry stressed.
Goa government had earlier criticized the MoEF, alleging that it is trying to force the recommendations of the K Kasturirangan-led working group on the Western Ghats on it without taking the state into confidence.
“Such recommendations, which have serious social, economic and fiscal implications and which, in a manner of speaking, impinge on the authority of the state government, cannot be unilaterally arrived at without the state government accepting the same,” State Environment Minister Alina Saldanha had said in her December 6 letter to MoEF.
