PANJIM: Two days after the State government announced the revocation of the suspension of Environment Clearances (ECs) pertaining to Goa mining leases, by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, no order has yet been issued by the Ministry.
The Chief Minister’s office confirmed that they have not received any such order from the MoEF till date. “We have not received any order about revocation of ECs from the Ministry until now. We will have to check whether it’s uploaded on the Ministry website,” the CMO staff said.
However, the official website of the Ministry www.moef.nic.in had no such order or circular uploaded on it, till later Thursday.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar had on Tuesday announced the revocation of suspension of ECs of 72 renewed mining leases by the Ministry incidentally on the eve of the ZP elections, with the former chief minister and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar standing besides the Union Minister for Mines Prakash Javadekar. ECs of 17 leases have been kept in abeyance since they are located in the one km buffer zone. The Government has renewed 89 mining leases under the Mines and Minerals Development Regulation (MMDR) Act.
The Opposition Congress and Goa Foundation Director Claude Alvares, the petitioner in the Supreme Court, had termed this announcement as a gimmick to influence the March 18 zilla panchayat elections, a day after the announcement.
The ECs of 139 mining leases were suspended in September 2012, post temporary suspension on mining activities imposed by the State BJP government. This was followed by Supreme Court ban in October, which was lifted in April 21, 2014. The State revoked its order in January, 2015.
