TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: “I am very clear. I am the mining minister. Nothing starts until I sign the file.” Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said Wednesday, while asserting his right to govern and re-start mining in the state.
Parrikar said that mining in the state would not start until an expert committee which he proposed to appoint, to look into all aspects of mining activities, comes out with a plan on how to go about the activity.
“A comprehensive study will be done and only after that the mining will start… Only when they come out with a plan, mining will start,” the chief minister said.
He however questioned the right of any NGO or the Supreme Court appointed Central Empowered Committee to question him or direct him to do anything.
“It is my fundamental right to govern, not CECs and not Claude’s,” he stated, adding, “The Goa government is an elected one and represents 15 lakh people.”
Defending his government’s affidavit, he said that it states what his government would do and the other part would be looked into by the Khandeparkar committee.
Firmly batting for export of mining dumps, Parrikar said, “But we want to start the export of dumps…to fill the stomachs of the stakeholders…. dump operations will be by government authority,” he said.
The chief minister said, “I have said that all environmentally permissible dumps… those that have passed legal scrutiny and environment scrutiny, will be auctioned.”
Parrikar informed that they wanted to export around 25,000 million tones of ore.
Replying to a question that dumps were needed for backfilling mining pits, he asked, “Why do pits need to be filled? Water can be filled in the pits. The water table will be charged.”
He said that the Goa government was planning to shift the water from the dumps into the rivers, warning that if not certain areas will have water problems.
“Even in January, water level has dropped,” Parrikar said speaking about Opa. He however refused to go into the reason of how that had happened, saying that this could be investigated later and said “factual situation does not change history.”
He also defended his decision on lease renewals saying that the state would earn Rs 800 crore by that while earlier government was charging some Rs 2 lakh per lease and for the past 25 odd years it had given the land free, for lease holders to mine.
