TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Mines Department has constituted two committees to check the quantity of ore lying at jetties, ports, mining leases and stockyards, officials said Tuesday. The committees which have to submit their reports by December 15 will be headed by assistant directors 1 and 2 (for north and south Goa).
The state as of now had tentatively identified 15 MT of ore lying in stacks even though there are reports that there could be upto 50 odd MT of ore lying at various places.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court had set up a committee of experts to conduct a Macro EIA study on what should be the ceiling of annual excavation of iron ore in Goa based on its iron ore resources and its carrying capacity keeping in mind the principles of sustainable development and inter-generational equity and all other relevant factors, as reported earlier.
The Expert Committee comprises an Ecologist ~ Dr C R. Babu, Head of the Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, Delhi University. He was a member of the High Level Working Group on the Western Ghats chaired by Kasturirangan. He specialises in the rehabilitation of mined sites; Geologist/Hydrogeologist ~ Dr S C Dhiman, former Chairman of the Central Ground Water Board/Authority and former in charge of policy planning and implementation of schemes for ground water management in the country; Mineralogist ~ Prof B K Mishra is Director of the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology from 2006, a CSIR institution formerly called the Regional Research Laboratory, Bhubaneshwar; and Director (retired), ICFRE and government nominees which would include nominee of Chief Secretary and nominee of Secretary, Union MoEF.
