By IANS,
Panaji: All mining leases indicted in Justice M.B. Shah Commission’s report should be marked for “rehabilitation and afforestation”, an NGO demanded Thursday.
Sabina Martins, convenor of the Goa Bachao Abhiyaan (GBA), said that the cost of illegal mining, pegged at Rs.35,000 crore by the commission, should be recovered from companies involved.
The NGO is an umbrella organisation of several civil society groups demanding planned development tempered with green sensitivities.
“GBA (feels) that since all the mines listed in the Shah Commission report are illegal, these mines should not be reflected in the Regional Plan as legal,” Martins said.
“All the mines should be shown as degraded mining areas and earmarked for rehabilitation and afforestation.”
The Regional Plan 2021, a futuristic document being formulated in Goa, is expected to chart out all the land resources in the states with its designated uses.
The GBA has also called for cancellation of all mining leases in Goa because the findings in the report have also revealed that the permission for renewal of leases were not given in accordance with law.
“The government of Goa should (also) limit the areas for mining to the areas actually being currently in operation, provided they have the legal permissions to operate,” it said.