Panaji: Tightening the screws on the
mining lease holders and traders after facing inquiry by Shah
Commission, the Goa State Mines and Geology department has
issued a circular asking them not to carry out any sort of
activity at the sites of iron ore dumps.
"It has been brought to the attention of the
government by various agencies that there is a large scale
handling of mining dumps by the lease holders or traders
without permission thereby resulting into illegal extraction
or non-payment of royalty on such extraction in certain
cases," state mines and geology director Arvind Lolienkar has
said in the circular issued recently.
The circular forwarded to all the mines and concerned
authorities further reads that the government has therefore
decided not to allow any working, handling or sale at such
dumps by the lease holders or traders till a system is put in
place by the directorate.
The notice came in the background of a slew of
allegations against Goa government over illegal mining.
State Mines and Geology department was caught on the
wrong foot recently when it could not produce details about
the existing mining dumps in the state sought by the Shah
Commission probing into the illegal mining trade.
The illegality in the iron ore export is measured
depending upon the amount of ore extracted and exported.
The mining firms have been claiming that they have not
violated the maximum permissible limit of extraction and the
quantum of ore they have exported is from the dumps lying at
their sites.
According to a mines official, in order to have exact
idea regarding the quantum of ore lying at the mining sites,
the state government has now decided to register each and
every mound.
The Digambar Kamat government stopped short of
imposing green cess on the dumps in the budget for year
2009-10 but the mining lobby exerted pressure to roll back the
cess even before its implementation.
PTI
