By IANS,
Panaji : Iron ore should not be the only major export for Goa’s Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) and mining in Goa should be nationalised in the interest of protecting India’s natural resources, Tapan Sen, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader and member of a parliamentary consultative committee on the steel ministry, said Wednesday.
“Why should a port in Goa export only iron ore? They should diversify operations and ensure that the port is used for multiple purposes,” Sen said on a day when workers involved in the iron ore industry held protests in the state capital demanding that legal mining be restarted in Goa.
Speaking to reporters here, Sen said that even though the ore extracted from Goa had a lower iron content, it could still be upgraded to iron or processed into steel, instead of exporting it to other countries.
“Iron ore mining in Goa should be nationalised and ore should not be allowed to be exported out of the country at any cost. India needs iron and steel, we should make use of it,” Sen said, adding that even though Goa’s ore was not high in iron content, newer techniques in metallurgy could easily help processing the low grade ore.
Currently, all mining activity has been banned in Goa following a Supreme Court ban. The ban came in after a judicial commission headed by former Supreme Court judge M.B. Shah exposed a Rs.35,000 crore scam involving politicians, bureaucrats and virtually all the major mining companies in the state.