PANJIM: The issue of transporting e-auctioned iron ore through village roads have again reached the High Court of Bombay at Goa.
The Surakshit Distributors Pvt Ltd has filed a miscellaneous civil application seeking to transport e-auctioned iron ore through the Pilgao village road in Bicholim.
Earlier, the Court had allowed the Directorate of Mines and Geology to consider the applications seeking leave to transport iron ore but not to grant permissions on certain routes, until further orders from the Court. The department was told to place decisions before the court.
The Mulakh Khajan Farmers Association, Mayem has also filed an application for impleadment, while Narendra Gaonkar and Trivikram Prabhu Gaonkar have also filed applications for intervention in the matter.
After the hearing, Adv Norma Alvares representing the Mulakh Khajan Farmers Association, Goa Foundation and other villagers, said that they had challenged the transportation of e-auctioned iron ore through Mayem village. One of the main reasons was that the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), New Delhi had issued an Office Memorandum stating that iron ore should not be transported through village roads because of noise pollution and hardships caused to the villagers.
Adv Alvares said that during the hearing of public interest litigation (PIL) writ petition filed by the Mulakh Khajan Farmers Association on January 17 this year, the Court had stated that this was an important issue which will apply to all the villagers across the State and it will stop transportation of or through villages until a clear policy as to who will be responsible for monitoring and enforcement.
Adv Om D’Costa said that the monitoring done by the Directorate of Mines and Geology, speed of the trucks and how much ore was loaded in these trucks had been done by the Goa Electronics Limited (GEL).
“But our issue was about the monitoring being done by the Goa State Pollution Control Board. The report came after three days by which time activities were already over and pollution was caused. So like the Directorate of Mines and Geology, there should also be a real time monitoring by the GSPCB,” Adv D’Costa said.
In its order, the Court had stated that ore transportation will not be permitted through the village till such time that real time ore transportation mechanism is set up in the village including two more pollution monitoring stations and two CCTV cameras with monitoring mechanism are installed at the local village panchayat.
