PANAJI
The sand mining quagmire in Goa has inched closer to resolution Chief Minister Pramod Sawant indicated on Wednesday, saying the government had received reports on status of rivers while the one on Mandovi is awaited, clearing the way for the process of issuing licences to begin.
“We have received reports for two rivers. We are awaiting the one on Mandovi,” Sawant said, adding that the minor minerals section of the Department of Geology and Mines can then commence issuing licences for sand mining where the reports show mineable deposits.
Sawant was speaking to the media on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.
There has been a complete ban on the local sand mining industry due to court directions which has for nearly two years contributed to a shortage of the material crucial in the construction sector.
The extraction and trading of the sand sector in Goa has also faced severe uncertainty over several years previously with intermittent interventions from the courts.
The activity is regulated by the ‘minor minerals’ section of the mining department and the absence of a firm policy or scientific regime to grant extraction licences is at the epicentre of the intervention of the courts.
The courts have banned the activity over concerns of environmental destruction of riverine ecosystems.
The erosion of the banks of several rivers including Tiracol in some parts of Pernem, Chapora in Siolim and other contiguous areas of Bardez and also in Colvale and Amona has been blamed on unregulated and indiscriminate sand extraction from the beds of these rivers.
Currently, whatever little sand is transacted in the State all happens clandestinely and much of it comes in from across the borders.
At another level, with the shortage faced by the State’s construction industry being overcome by imports from across the border, the situation has raised some tensions among local truckers and transporters.
