Goa mining policy to focus on ruined farmlands

Indications are that the mining policy, which is likely to be ready by May end, may dwell upon the critical issues faced by the non-mining community which is on the edge due to flagrant extraction and transportation of the ore.

Senior officers in the State Secretariat told PTI that the issues like dust pollution, run-offs by the mines, agricultural and farmland ravages due to pollution are likely to figure in prominently in the policy which talks of sustainable mining of iron ore in the state.

Several farmlands in seven iron ore-rich talukas in the coastal state are lying parched due to scarcity of water and piling up of silt washed away during monsoons.

The river bodies in these areas too have turned muddy due to release of rejected ore which is stacked at the mining site into them.

The state government has already banned desilting the farms as several illegal miners used to carry out digging under the pretext of cleaning up the silt from the paddy fields, farms or lakes.

Henceforth, the state will have control over the process to remove mud from the farms and money earned from the selling of extracted ore would be spent back on development of farming.

Several villages are on the brink of getting flooded in the monsoon due to unstable walls of the ponds on the mining sites.