17 JUL, 2012,MEERA MOHANTY, ET BUREAU
New Delhi: A panel of experts has recommended capping iron ore mining in Goa to between 20 and 25 million tonnes a year for the next five years, nearly half of what the state produces and exports today. But the committee wants another high-powered committee to arrive at a more 'evidence-based' threshold limit for mining in the state.
"We don't want any figure to be taken as sacrosanct," said Raghunath Anant Mashelkar who chaired the Goa Golden Jubilee Development Council.
The panel recently submitted its road map up to 2035 for Goa. The mining threshold was recommended by a sub group on environment and sustainable development, led by ecologist, Madhav Gadgil. "It was agreed that a vision document might not be the place for a very rigid ceiling," agreed Gadgil.
As mining is a big contributor to the state's coffers, Mashelkar said a ceiling on mining should be arrived at by a dedicated committee that considers environment as well as economic and trade parameters.
This, along with stronger evidence-based method and greater stakeholder engagement, will be more acceptable, he added.
The 20-25 million tonnes threshold is based on a detailed TERI exercise that covered mining in the state but showed adverse impact on air quality, agricultural output, loss of land and water pollution, and recorded people's dissatisfaction, even when volumes stood at 17mt in 1997.
"Given that output by 2011 had crossed 50 mt with no evidence of improved practices, and considerable evidence of stress when we visited the mining regions in 2011, it was possible to conclude that there was need of a cap on fresh mining and another on dump mining as both had different types of impact," Ligia Noronha, resource economist at TERI and a key member of the panel.
Both Gadgil, as chairperson, and Noronha were part of the Western Ghat's Committee which has recommended that mining be phased out in five years in the most ecologically sensitive pockets of the Ghats. It has, however, left it to the respective states and local institutions to draw the boundaries of these zones.
The ceiling on mining does not, however, cover Goa's notorious dumps.
New Delhi: A panel of experts has recommended capping iron ore mining in Goa to between 20 and 25 million tonnes a year for the next five years, nearly half of what the state produces and exports today. But the committee wants another high-powered committee to arrive at a more 'evidence-based' threshold limit for mining in the state.
"We don't want any figure to be taken as sacrosanct," said Raghunath Anant Mashelkar who chaired the Goa Golden Jubilee Development Council.
The panel recently submitted its road map up to 2035 for Goa. The mining threshold was recommended by a sub group on environment and sustainable development, led by ecologist, Madhav Gadgil. "It was agreed that a vision document might not be the place for a very rigid ceiling," agreed Gadgil.
As mining is a big contributor to the state's coffers, Mashelkar said a ceiling on mining should be arrived at by a dedicated committee that considers environment as well as economic and trade parameters.
This, along with stronger evidence-based method and greater stakeholder engagement, will be more acceptable, he added.
The 20-25 million tonnes threshold is based on a detailed TERI exercise that covered mining in the state but showed adverse impact on air quality, agricultural output, loss of land and water pollution, and recorded people's dissatisfaction, even when volumes stood at 17mt in 1997.
"Given that output by 2011 had crossed 50 mt with no evidence of improved practices, and considerable evidence of stress when we visited the mining regions in 2011, it was possible to conclude that there was need of a cap on fresh mining and another on dump mining as both had different types of impact," Ligia Noronha, resource economist at TERI and a key member of the panel.
Both Gadgil, as chairperson, and Noronha were part of the Western Ghat's Committee which has recommended that mining be phased out in five years in the most ecologically sensitive pockets of the Ghats. It has, however, left it to the respective states and local institutions to draw the boundaries of these zones.
The ceiling on mining does not, however, cover Goa's notorious dumps.
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