PANJIM: The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests appointed Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) has authenticated the findings of Justice M B Shah Commission, pointing to the fact that mining lease holders in Goa are involved in several violations including excess production, illegal encroachments, dump mining and operating leases in forests and protected areas without consent.
MoEF scientist Dr U Sridharan, in a communication to State government on Friday, has directed it to initiate appropriate action against all the concerned lessees involved in violations as observed by the EAC.
MoEF had on March 21, 2013 constituted the EAC under chairmanship of Vishwanath Anand, former Secretary (MoEF). The committee submitted its report in October 2013.
“EAC in its report has observed violations such as not obtaining national wildlife board (NWLB) clearance and non-compliance of Supreme Court order, excess production, dump mining, intersecting ground water table and drawl of ground water without permission of Central Ground Water Board, no forest clearance obtained wherever required, encroachments, false information or concealment of facts,” the Ministry has said in its report.
The report has been referred to the Wildlife Division, Forest Division of the Union Ministry and State government for taking appropriate action on violations.
The judicial inquiry commission on illegal mining in Goa headed by Justice (retd) M B Shah had nailed similar illegalities in their three-part report, placed before the Parliament in 2012. A total of 100 mining firms were castigated by the Commission for carrying out illegalities including extraction of iron ore beyond permissible capacity, illegal export, and non clearances from MoEF, NWLB, Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) and illegal encroachments. The Commission had grilled State Mines Department for failing to take any action despite being aware of the situation.
Though, show cause notices were issued to all these 100 leases, no action was initiated, as the State government and IBM, both, contested the Commission’s findings on encroachment stating that Global Positioning Survey has ‘not accurately mapped these areas’.
Even in the case of excess production, the authorities, in the action taken report (ATR) had said that ‘with successive mining, there is possibility of finding useable resources, leading to excess production or that the dumps could be part of production’. For the year 2010-11, the production of iron ore was 47 million tonnes as against EC limit of 42 million tonnes, while the export showed 54 million tonnes production.
