MARGAO: The Goa government was directed by the Supreme Court to submit its proposal for the recovery of the mining loot on February 6, 2019. The government had previously asked for six weeks time to submit the proposal.
Goa Foundation’s Claude Alvares, was skeptical when asked whether he expects the government to submit the proposal. He said the government has to issue a demand notice which it does not want to in order to protect the interest of the companies. “The companies will have to pay more since there will be an interest levied from the date the demand notice is issued,” he said.
On Monday, Jharkhand imposed a fine of Rs 33,000 crore on around 20 offenders of iron ore mines. Complementing the Jharkhand government, Alvares stated that Goa Foundation will take the matter a step further by issuing an affidavit showing how much money Goa is losing by not issuing the demand notice.
He also said Goa Foundation will initiate a statewide campaign where they will show the people how much has been lost. “There is no ban on mining today. The mines are simply invalid. The government should forget about mine owners, at least think of the Goans who are dependent of mining. Let the locals benefit from mining. The companies are the ones who created the problems in the first place. We had proposed in the beginning that Goa government should operate the mines,” he said.
Alvares added, “There are huge illegalities that the government of the BJP, GFP and MGP is trying hard to ignore by pretending they just do not exist or don’t know about them.”
