Panaji: Goa Foundation has petitioned Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi alleging that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s actions on the mining front were helping China markets.
“The miners have no interest in assisting India’s development by ensuring use of Goa’s minerals ores in the country. All they are still keen on is continuing to sell these scarce ores to the China market. The state and the country are today unable to find even one reason to support their cause,” Goa Foundation has said in a letter written to the Prime Minister on June 19, 2020.
“The priority of the Sawant government today is to be seen in recent orders of the Director of Mines and Geology, permitting transport and export of iron ore stocks upto July 31, 2020, directly favouring former lease-holders and traders who have spot contracts with China,” NGO’s Director Claude Alvares has said in the letter.
“Normally, all mining activity halts before the monsoon by May 15 every year,” he pointed out demanding that Dr Sawant ought to be directed to stop the export of Goa’s ore to China forthwith as it is entirely inappropriate when seen within the circumstances facing the country today.
Goa Foundation’s petition before the Supreme Court in the year 2012 had halted iron ore industry over its alleged illegalities in the form of extraction in access to the Environment Clearance and royalty paid.
The NGO had again successfully managed to quash 88 mining leases in the year 2015 following SC order, which were renewed by then governments led by Manohar Parrikar and Laxmikant Parsekar.
The detailed letter written to the PM has accused the state government of trying to restart the mining in the state against the law introduced by the central government when it amended the MMDR Act in 2015.
NGO has alleged that despite clear directions provided in three judgments from three different benches of the Supreme Court, Dr Sawant has successfully stalled the process of mineral lease auctions by lobbying for the former mining lease-holders.
“Dr Sawant’s actions have promoted precisely the reverse as far as the Goa mining industry is concerned. They, in fact, violate the BJP’s 2014 manifesto which promised natural resource and minerals allocation through public auction,” the NGO said.
“As a result of the election manifesto commitment, in January 2015, your government pushed through a radical amendment to the MMDR Act. The amendment requires that henceforth all mining leases shall be granted only on the basis of a public auction,” it pointed out.
