The Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) has issued an order revoking suspension of environmental clearances (ECs) of 72 Iron ore mines in Goa.
The ministry issued a formal order on 22 Mar, following its decision to revoke the suspension a few days ago. As per the order, the ministry has decided to “lift the abeyance of the 72 leases and they would not require any fresh EC”.
As recommended by the apex court, the ministry has ordered the state to develop and implement a credible mechanism to ensure that 20 MnT pa Iron ore mining cap is executed. However, suspension of ECs of 18 mines located in the one-kilometre buffer zone around wildlife sanctuaries has not been revoked.
There are 22 mining leases on the forest land and their ECs too would remain in abeyance until they get “forest clearances”. To add, mining in the forest areas and export of existing ore dumps would not be permitted.
The licenses of the 72 mining leases have already been renewed by the state and as per the ministry, violation of mining lease conditions would lead to immediate suspension of ECs again, as it happened in September 2012.
What we think?
Further process would be consent and mining plan approval i.e. air and water pollution clearance, R&R plans, allocation of the mining limit etc.
We think there are many catches in the notifications issued. Capping of 20 MnT and allocating the capped tonnage to respective mines is important, which can take anywhere between 6 months to 2 years. Mining will not resume until then.
The State government is working on distribution of the cap. According to us, they already have the plan in place and we expect it to happen sooner.
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