MARGAO
Accusing the Congress government headed by then Chief Minister Digambar Kamat for giving renewal of consent and consent to establish coal handling activities at the MPT during its tenure, NCP lone MLA Churchill Alemao on Thursday warned to shut down the MPT operations if coal handling is not stopped at the Port immediately.
Churchill also raised fears that export of iron ore from Goa will be adversely impacted once mining resumes in the State, if the MPT is allowed to import coal for Maharashtra and Karnataka-based industries.
Addressing the media, the NCP Benaulim MLA said he was a member of the Kamat government between 2007-2012, but the then Chief Minister had never taken the Cabinet Ministers into confidence before the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) granted consent to establish and operate coal at the MPT.
“I am surprised that the Kamat government, in which I was a Minister, had granted consent to coal handling at the MPT without taking the Cabinet into confidence. Now, these same people are misguiding the people and leading them to the railway tracks,” he said.
Saying that Congress leaders including Digambar Kamat and Francisco Sardinha had welcomed the track-doubling project, he lamented that these very leaders are now getting the people to the railway tracks to oppose the project.
Demanding that coal for the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka should not be handled and transported from the MPT, Churchill has warned that he would lead the people of Goa to shut down the MPT in the event the Port authorities bulldoze its way with coal handling.
“We have to stop the coal coming from the sea meant for Maharashtra and Karnataka. Coal will destroy our coast and spell doom for tourism,” he said, while welcoming Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s decision to bring down coal handling at the MPT by 50 per cent.
Meanwhile, the NCP MLA took offence to South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha for accusing him as a smuggler and for defections. “If I was a smuggler, why was Sardinha my election agent in the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress had implicated me in the smuggling case, but the court had given me a clean chit,” he said.
He said the South Goa MP was responsible for bringing the BJP to power in Goa when he became the Chief Minister with the support of late Manohar Parrikar. “Sardinha was on record saying that Parrikar was his brother. Is it not the MP responsible for bringing the BJP to power in Goa in 2000,” he questioned, while reminding that Goa was hit by marks scandal in the 80’s during Sardinha’s tenure as the State’s Education Minister.
