TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Today, September 10, marks one year since the Manohar Parrikar led government imposed a ban on mining in the state, through suspension of mining leases, amid the frenzied atmosphere in the aftermath of the tabling of the Shah Commission report in Parliament a couple of days later.
365 days later, not only is there a world of difference in the mining belt, but so has the rhetoric floating in the state capital distinctly changed.
“Our agriculture yield has gone up by nearly 40%, you don’t find big cars outside the roadside bars, drunken brawls by the neo rich are absent, the police too are happy,” Motesh Antão a resident of Kevnem in Quepem said.
He said most of the villagers including those who had a stake in the mining industry are today far happier now than what they were when the mining was on.
“There is a mood of peace that has settled in the villages. Mining was not only causing environmental pollution but was also affecting the social strata of the village,” Antão said adding that the abundance of money only made more enemies as jealousy, suspicion and other feelings of mistrust set in, in the villages.
“One would see big SUVs parked outside the bars that would end in drunken brawls, fights among villagers, etc.,” Antão added.
He added that on account of stopping of mining their agriculture yield has gone up by 40% as well as supported by adequate rainfall,” he said.
Meanwhile in Bicholim in the North the situation is no different. A calmer atmosphere coupled with people going back to the “secondary occupations” that they were doing in any case.
The change in rhetoric hasn’t gone unnoticed either. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who went from saying “that the Shah Commission report vindicated many of his findings as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee,” soon after it was tabled, to now “preparing the ground for the Supreme Court of lift the ban on mining as well as demonizing “the NGO which approached the Supreme Court” and glorifying the miners as the demand for “livelihood” grows louder.
However, the villagers are unfazed by the State government’s drumming up their passion on resumption of the mining.
“Let them first declare which mines are legal and only then they should think of starting the mines. Let it be in the public domain that these number of mines have no illegalities,” Antão said.
The Supreme Court is reported to have agreed to hear the mining case on a daily basis for three days starting September 17 and further from September 24.
Only if the Supreme Court partially or wholly lifts its ban, can mining restart, without which, irrespective of what the State government does, mining will not resume.
There are many preconditions for restarting of mining, which haven’t been fulfilled as yet including putting in place a mechanism to monitor mining the source of the ore.
