Miners continued to extract illegally even as the Shah Commission investigated.

 TEAM HERALD

teamherald@herald-goa.com

PANJIM:       Goa Foundation (GF) has claimed, that even as Shah Commission officials were enquiring into the illegal mining, almost half of state’s ore that left the shores during last financial year was illegally extracted.

            GF, which has filed series of petitions before High Court on illegal mining has stated that almost 43 percent of the ore exported from Goa during the financial year 2010-11was illegally extracted violating environmental norms.

GF director Dr Claude Alvares has said that based on the official data submitted by two government agencies – Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) and Directorate of Mines and Geology (DMG), the foundation has come to the conclusion of extensive illegality.

The figures reveal that the illegally extracted ore export is on the rise compared to last year (2009-10), which was 33 percent.

As per the figures available from DMG, for the year 2010-11 total production of ore was 48.38 million tonnes, while the actual export was 54.3 MT, with no record of 5.65 MT ore. “Obviously no royalty was paid on this 5.65 MT ore,” Alvares said.

The figures also indicate that for the last financial year, the legal ore exported was only 30.70 MT, while 23.33 MT was illegal, which includes 15.45 MT from dump and 2.33 MT was excess production, while the fresh ore extracted was only 32.93 MT.

Meanwhile, DMG’s list claiming that there are 91 operational mining leases in the state contradicts IBM’s record, which stands at 114, leaving aside 23 working leases which are unaccounted for.

 Similarly, the figure of ore dumps available with two government agencies does not tally. While state government department says that during 2009-10, 12.60 MT ore was produced, IBM figure states that it was 5.49 MT.

Further, based on the information provided by DMG in 2009-10, 39 mining leases were involved in exceeding the EC limit, which was almost 7.33 MT. However, in 2010-11, though the number of mines involved in excess production reduced from 39 to 31, the excess production increased, compared to the earlier year.

The combined EC limit of 31 leases was 14.82 MT, while they actually produced 27.06 MT– an excess of 12.24 M.T of ore.

Even data from IBM confirms that in 2009-10, 31 mining leases exceeded their target by 3.26 MT, while the dumps production which was in excess was 7.11 MT.

Table 1: All Figures in M.T. (million tons)

(*DMG – Director of Mines and Geology, Government of Goa)
(*GF – Goa Foundation)