PANJIM, SEPT 15
The Goa State Pollution Control Board has issued notices to 35 of the 104 mining leases registered with it, even as a senior official mentioned that more than 25 per cent of the mines were operating without clearances from the Forest Department.
Chairman GSPCB Simon D’Souza said the notices have been issued to those operational mines that had applied to the board for renewal of their consent to operate under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act.
D’Souza said the board will keep under scanner polluting mining leases. Most of these leases that were issued notices have failed to produce necessary clearances from the Forest Department, he stated.
Illegal mining that goes unchecked has ravaged the Goan countryside, while the Mines Department has been caught napping. In the monsoon session of the assembly the department came in for severe criticism from Aldona legislator Dayanand Narvekar.
Narvekar had pointed to the shoddy staff strength in the department and blamed them for hardly checking how much ore was being extracted over the last so many years.
Opposition leader Manohar Parrikar charged that nearly 18 per cent of Goa’s total 40 million mining output comprised of illegally mined ore. He blamed Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and some of the cabinet ministers for allowing illegal mining to flourish in the State.
