Goa facing Emergency-like situation due to mining crisis: GFP

Goa Forward Party chief Vijai Sardesai today said that Goa was facing an "Emergency-like" situation due to the crisis in the mining sector after the Supreme Court in a recent judgment cancelled 88 mining leases and halted extraction of iron ore from March 15.
"This is a transitional period and these are challenging times. The stoppage of mining is going to affect several people. It will have a huge social impact," Sardesai, who is also a member of State Cabinet Advisory Committee, told reporters in Vasco today.
He said that about one and a half lakh people, including 12,000 truck drivers, face unemployment due to the crisis.

"We are facing an emergency-like situation in Goa," he said.
Stating that the government was not reponsible for the current situation, he said, "It is a Supreme Court decision. There was a ban on bars on the highways as well by the SC. Now there is a decision on mining. One pillar of democracy decides to exert its influence and one whole thing gets paralysis."
Indirectly referring to the statements made by some coalition partners suggesting mid-term polls, Sardesai said that it was a time when all parties in the ruling coalition should behave responsibly.

"The Chief Minister is in hospital. We also have a responsibility that he does not get stressed there," he said.

"The government is bound by a common minimum program. The government is not unsafe," he said, responding to a question on statements by alliance partners that they were part of the government only as long as Manohar Parrikar was chief minister.
He said his party had made sacrifices to form this government and ruled out mid-term polls.
However, he added that his party was ready to fight mid-term polls if there was one.