The Supreme Court on Friday imposed a complete ban on mining activities in all the 90 mines in Goa as well as the transportation of iron and manganese ores till further orders.
Goa is the country’s second-biggest iron-ore producer?with an output of more than 50 million tonnes?and exports almost all of it.
A special forest bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam halted the mining operation in that state after lending credence to the Justice M B Shah Commission report, tabled in Parliament on September 7, estimating a whopping R35,000-crore loss to the exchequer due to illegal mining in the last 12 years.
The court also suspended transportation of ores, in mining areas, transit or stocked. The bench also asked the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to submit its preliminary report on illegal mining activities in the state in four weeks and sought reply from the ministry of environment and forests and the Goa government.
The court passed the interim order on a PIL by an NGO ? Goa Foundation ? seeking probe into illegal mining activities in the state. Citing the Shah Commission report, the PIL had claimed that the illegal activities in mining were underway since 2000.
The apex court is already seized of the illegal mining cases in Karnataka where, after halting all mining activities for more than year, it had on September 3 allowed operations in only 18 mines out of more than 100 mines where the irregularities were minimum. Advocate ADN Rao, the amicus curiae in the case, also supported the contention of counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, to completely ban mining in Goa until the ground realities could be ascertained by the CEC.
Reacting to the order, chief minister Manohar Parrikar said that move is an endorsement of its government’s order, which was issued a month back to stop mining activities.
?The Supreme Court has not heard state government in the matter. Let the notice come from SC, we will reply to the court,? Parrikar said.
The PIL added all the 90 mines in the state were functioning without the mandatory permission from the National Board of Wild Life (NBWL) and 33 of these mines were within 1.5 km of the wildlife sanctuaries.
