MARGAO: Congress Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco questioned the relevance and weightage of the State government’s proposed requests to the Central government about coal expansion at Mormugao Port.
He said that the government needs to reveal that the major projects are being done to transport coal.
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Opposition MLA Reginaldo wrote to the Chief Minister and Power and Environment Minister on the Chief Minister’s reported statement on Wednesday regarding (verbal) assurances given to him by Union Minister for Shipping that coal handling capacity at MPT would be reduced from current levels and recent statement of the Environment Minister that he would be writing to the Central government not to permit expansion of coal handling at MPT from the current sanctioned capacity.
“From the past experience, the Central government has ignored the letters written by the Government of Goa regarding the expansion of the coal handling capacity of Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) as seen from the fate of earlier two letters written by the then Chief Minister late Manohar Parrikar to then Union Environment Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.”
“Parrikar’s letters were not even considered in the decision-making process. A ‘fitting tribute’ to a fervent plea by Goa’s former Chief Minister and the country’s former defence minister,” reminded Reginaldo.
“Our government is concealing or is pretending to be oblivious to a bitter fact that the cargo import projections as envisioned in the master plan report for Goa under the Centre’s Sagarmala programme under which the Mormugao Port will be upgraded and enhanced to have a capacity of 51 MMPTA by 2035 to cater to the rising needs of coal and coke in Karnataka,” alleged Reginaldo.
“The government should reveal to the Goans once and for all that the double tracking of Hospet-Vasco South Western Railway line, nationalisation of rivers and expansion of highways is done only with the primary purpose to transport coal to Karnataka,” said Reginaldo.
