Team Herald
PONDA: All Goa Mining People`s Front (AGMPF) on Friday held a meeting at Usgao, where mining dependents from all over Goa attended in huge numbers. MLAs and politicians from all the political parties were also attended the meeting.
AGMPF President Puthi Gaonkar said ordinance was the only route for immediate restarting of mining activities in Goa.
Many political leaders, including former chief minister and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat and Ponda MLA Ravi Naik favoured ordinance to the Goa Mining Concession Act 1987 to continue it till 2037, which seemed the easiest option compared to the review petitions, suggested by AGMPF leader.
Nilesh Cabral, who landed in Goa from the PM’s office in New Delhi and came directly for the Usgao meeting, said though the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was not available, but the principal secretary had taken note of people’s suffering due to stoppage of mining activities and indicated an ordinance for restarting mining.
Opposition leader Babu Kavlekar said the intention and policies of State and Central BJP leaders on mining issue were different and the lack of coordination on the issue is the main hurdle, which is why they could not find a solution for the past four months after the Supreme Court order.
During the meeting the AGMPF leader said that mining in Goa and mining in other States was not the same. Goa’s mining activities are on since the Portuguese era and concession was granted during the Portuguese era, while Central Government MMDR lease Act came into force only in 1957.
He said that since the Central government wanted to abolish the concession and wanted to bring Goa under MMDR Act, it abolished concession in 1987.
Gaonkar said since concessions are converted into leases it should come into force from 1987 and should be valid till 2037, because as per Central Government MMDR Act, leases are for fifty-year period. Further, in India laws are always made with prospective effect and not retrospective. “Hence it is easy to bring ordinance to continue the mining till 2037,” he said and added that some mine owners had challenged the 1987 abolition of Concession Act in SC and case is still pending in Court.
All political leaders including Kamat, Naik appreciated Gaonkar for his study on the mining laws and said ordinance was the best solution. Kamat said the livelihood of lakhs of people was affected and even business in cities was affected in the absence of mining.
The Ponda MLA too said that the Central government could issue ordinance within half an hour.
Meanwhile, the AGMPF leader warned the government for taking too much time on the issue.
It appears that they are not bothered about the suffering of mining affected people, he said, adding that if any effort was made to bring compaines like Adani into Goa mining, by sidelining mining dependent people in the business, such mining activities would not be allowed in Goa.
Others were present for the meeting include Goa Forward Party representative Prashant Naik, Shiv Sena leader Jeetesh Kamat, NCP leader Jose Philip, Thivim MLA Nilkant Halarnkar, Savordem MLA Deepak Pauskar.
