Parrikar to fly to US on Aug 9 for health check-up: Official

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will be flying to the US on August 9 from Delhi for a medical check-up and is expected return by the end of this month, a senior official said today.

Parrikar is scheduled to be in Delhi tomorrow and is expected to meet the Centre's Group of Ministers to place before it a resolution on mining passed in the Goa Legislative Assembly on August 3, the official from the Chief Minister's Office said.

Parrikar (62) is suffering from a pancreatic ailment and had flown to the US on March 7 for treatment. He returned to the country on June 14.

The Goa Legislative Assembly had, on August 3, passed a resolution urging the Centre to suitably amend the Goa, Daman and Diu Mining Concessions (Abolition and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, to allow mining leases in the state to be operational till 2037.

The resolution also wanted 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.

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.