Miners want Supreme Court to decide the issue
TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: While those involved in iron ore transportation (trucks and barges owners) have asked for 45 to 50 million metric tons annually cap for export, the mine owners have left the decision on the ceiling to the Supreme Court. Both the bodies, however, pleaded for immediate resumption of mining activities in the State, in presentations made before the six member expert panel.
The Supreme Court appointed panel is in Goa to conduct a Macro environment impact assessment (EIA) study on what would be the annual ceiling on excavation of ore from the State, on Thursday held meeting with the mining stakeholders including Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association (GMOEA), truck owners, barge owners, machinery owners and the labour unions. Sesa Goa Managing director P K Mukherjee also attended the meeting.
Committee has directed GMOEA to make a written submission over their recommendation for capping and other mining related issues. The apex exporters’ body would be making its written submission next week.
Speaking to media persons after the meeting, Mukherjee said that they have not recommended anything on capping or ceiling of annual iron ore extraction but want the Supreme Court to look into all the aspects such as infrastructure, resources for future generation and economy of people dependent on the business, as all are inter-related. “Let the expert committee decide on capping,” he said. “Everyone is looking positive on the issue,” he commented.
Earlier, the Barge Owners Association, North Goa Truck Owners, South Goa Truck owners, Tipper Owners and All Goa Machinery owners made their submission before the committee. The transporters lobby has demanded gross capping of 45-50 million tons of iron ore for export. They said that anything below that volume would spell the death knell of the transport industry.
“We require a volume of 50 million tons cargo for export to survive; otherwise the barge industry would be unviable. Export is a must for our livelihood. We have also demanded immediate resumption of the business,” All Goa Barge Owners Association Vice President Chandrakant Gawas said. There are around 305 barges with 6000 crew members owning a loan liability of Rs 360 crore.
A similar representation has been made by the truck and machinery owners, who also pleaded before the Committee to put up a case before Supreme Court for suitable directions to all the banks and other financial institutions not to proceed with the recovery of loans till mining resumes.
“It’s better not to allow mining rather than having a cap of 5 million tons as suggested by the petitioner,” All Goa Machinery owners president Sandeep Parab said. The aggrieved mining dependents have also threatened of law and order situation in the State if mining does not resume at the earliest.
