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PANJIM: The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests told the Supreme Court that “it had no choice” but to consider the area within 10 km of all national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Goa, as ecologically sensitive zones, thus bringing a majority of mining leases in the State within the zone.
In an affidavit filed in the SC, the MoEF argues that they have been forced by the non-cooperative attitude of the State government despite it pursuing the matter, and wants the Apex court to ask the government to comply.
The State government had been asked to work out, with the best possible accuracy, the distances of all the iron ore mines in the State, from the periphery of different national parks and wildlife sanctuaries with the help of high resolution National Remote Sensing Agency satellite images/maps followed by ground checks, the MoEF affidavit says.
“Despite pursuing the matter, we haven’t received any response from the State government in this regard too. This information is required to verify whether any particular mining project is located in the ecologically sensitive zone or not,” the additional affidavit by Dr Saroj, director of MoEF to SC states.
MoEF has also asked the court to direct the State to “do the needful in this regard at the earliest in a time bound manner” because the information is “crucial.” The information sought is the appropriate proposal on buffer zones ~ site specific proposals on national parks and wildlife sanctuaries for consideration of notification of ecologically sensitive zones.
The affidavit quotes court order dated December 4, 2006 wherein it is said to have directed the MoEF to ask the States and Union Territories to send the proposals to the ministry.
“Despite pursuing the matter with the State government, the proposals are yet to be received by us,” she says.
The affidavit also says that the ministry has already constituted an Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) to examine the documents submitted by mining companies and the regional office has already been asked to make multiple teams who would visit mines in Goa to evaluate this and send the reports to the ministry within a fortnight. The EAC is to evaluate the compliance status of the conditions as part of the environment clearance of these mining projects.
