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Goa mining dependents protest, slam government
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SME Times News Bureau | 14 Mar, 2019
Over 2,000 people who depend on
mining in Goa on Thursday staged a protest march near Panaji, accusing
the government of not taking up the issue of resuming work at the mines
seriously.
The Convenor of the Goa Mining People's Front, Puti
Gaonkar, told the rally that the state government should file an
affidavit in the apex court seeking amendments to the Goa, Daman and Diu
Mining Leases (Abolition of Mining Concessions and Declaration as
Mining Leases) Act 1987 to make it apply prospectively.
This, he
said, would automatically extend the lease period of Goa's iron ore
leases -- which have lapsed since 2007 -- till 2037.
"The
situation has reached such a pass because the government has taken the
issue of mining resumption lightly... We also demand that the Assistant
Solicitor General, Atmaram Nadkarni, who represented the case in the
Supreme Court, should be replaced with a senior counsel because he wants
the mining leases auctioned and not renewed as we want," Gaonkar aid,
after submitting a memorandum to Goa Chief Secretary Parimal Rai.
The
mining issue has been hanging fire in Goa, ever since the apex court
banned extraction and transportation of iron ore from 88 mining leases
from March 2018, while also directing the government to re-issue mining
leases.
This is the second time in less than a decade that all mining in the state has come to a standstill.
A
2012 ban was earlier lifted by the apex court in 2014, but the court
imposed fresh restrictions again in 2018, after it found that the
BJP-led government had not followed due procedure in the lease renewal
process.
Before Goa was liberated by the Indian armed forces in
1961, mining leases in Goa were permanent concessions granted by the
Portuguese colonists for exploration and exploitation.
Once India
took control of the coastal state, the Goa Daman and Diu (Abolition of
Concession and Declaration as Mining Leases) act, 1987 converted the
same concessions into mining leases under the Mines and Minerals
Development Act, 1954, making them valid for a fixed tenure of 20 years,
which lapsed in 2007.
Though passed by Parliament in 1987, in
the case of Goa, a late entrant into the Indian Union, the law was
retrospectively brought into effect from 1961, the year Goa was
liberated from the Portuguese.
Gaonkar said that the Front was
now demanding that the same law be applied with prospective effect,
which would stretch the tenure of the mining leases till 2037.
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