Goa Assembly passes resolution to urge Centre to amend mining

The Goa Legislative Assembly today unanimously passed a resolution urging the Centre to amend two acts connected with mining in order to restart the sector in the state.

The state's mining sector has been shut since March 16 this year after the Supreme Court, in an order in February, cancelled 88 leases and banned the extraction of fresh ore.

The private member's resolution, moved by BJP MLA Nilesh Cabral, stated that the Goa government would urge the Centre to suitably amend the Goa, Daman and Diu Mining Concessions (Abolition and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, to make it effective from May 23, 1987 instead of December 20, 1961.

This would allow mining leases in the state to be operational till 2037.

The resolution also wants the Union government to amend the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act in order to give mining leases in Goa a 50-year tenure of operation.

Speaking on the resolution, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said that he would be meeting the Centre's Group of Ministers on August 7 to place before them the state's demand to amend these acts.

"I will explain the entire issue and its economic implications," Parrikar said.

He told the House that the mining issue in the state would get a "proper direction" by September-October this year.

He said that the state government could have taken up the mining issue with the Centre on its own without a private member's resolution but it was done because the government wanted to know the sense of the House.