Congress MLA Luizinho Faleiro and his NCP counterpart Churchill Alemao on Tuesday strongly favoured auctioning of the mines in the state with a clause that local truck owners and mining dependents get the business as usual.
Both Luizinho and Churchill contended that government will earn huge revenue from auctioning of mines, with the Navelim MLA saying that the Indian Bureau of Mines has pegged the value of Goa’s mineral ore to a whopping Rs 5 lakh crore.
“I feel that the government should auction the mines as per the Supreme Court order. And, the government should insert a clause stating that the local truck owners and mining dependents will get the business as usual,” Churchill said. The Navelim MLA, on the other hand, squarely blamed the government for the closure of mining operations and putting the people on the roads. “The mining dependents are on the roads because they had taken loans and have no business to repay. I feel the government has miserably failed to protect the interest of the mining affected. With close to a 1000 million tones of mineral wealth in the state, I can say Goa is not a poor state, but the richest state in the country,” Luizinho said.
He demanded to know why the mining dependents are left in the lurch when the Indian Bureau of Mines has pegged the total value of Goa’s mineral ore to Rs five lakh core. “This government cannot manage the economy. They are beating up the people when the mining dependents are only asking for continuation of mining operations,” he said, while demanding that the government set in motion the process to resume mining operations in the state.
