Panaji: Goa Governor K Sankarnarayanan on Tuesday said that the state government is committed to crack down on illegal mining and the mafia involved in such activities. "While permitting legal mining, my Government is determined to crack down on the illegal mining as also the mafias involved in such illegal operations," the Governor told the State Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.
Sankarnarayanan was welcomed into the State Legislative Assembly complex by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and Leader of Opposition Pratapsingh Rane.
Addressing first session of the sixth Legislative Assembly of Goa, Sankarnarayanan said that no more forest areas would be diverted for mining activity in the state.
He said that mining has been a dominant industry providing employment to a number of persons and contributing significantly to the exchequer earnings.
"My government wishes to reduce dependency of the Goan economy on this sector," he said. Goa has witnessed massive illegal mining in the state which is being probed by the Centre-appointed Justice MB Shah Commission and also state Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The illegal mining is estimated to be around Rs 1,200 crore to Rs 10,000 crore.
The Governor said that government is aware of health problems being faced by the Goans, residing in mining affected areas, so also the degradation of forest and agricultural lands of those people.
"The endeavour of my government will be to make all out efforts to increase revenues from legal mining operation and plough back substantial part of the revenue to provide better infrastructure as also for reversal of environmental degradation," he said, in his half an hour long speech.
Addressing an issue of mining silt, which is usually flown into agricultural lands, Sankarnarayanan said that large quantity of mining waste is generated which is prone to erosion due to the heavy rainfall and the silt finds its way into the low lying lands, fields and water courses.
He stated that efforts will be made with the assistance of mining companies to carry out the work of afforestation on the waste dumps so as to stabilise them and avoid such mining.
"Furthermore, in order to avoid such mining waste being dumped at the mining areas or outside mining lease areas, the mining companies will be vigorously persuaded to adopt concurrent back filling in the pits which have been exhausted by mining," the Governor added.
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