PANAJI
Eager to resume sand mining and trade, the Goa government has hit a brick wall as legal opinion has suggested that it may not be possible to issue sand mining permissions without the sanction of the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant indicated as much on Thursday when he said sand mining permissions cannot be issued in the State without the instruction of NGT.
Sawant said the issue is sub-judice before the Bombay High Court and NGT and the State government has been directed to conduct a two season survey.
Only one of these two surveys is complete and the second is awaited, according to Sawant.
The chief minister admitted that the State is losing a significant amount of revenue and people in the business are also losing livelihoods.
There has been a complete ban on the local sand mining industry due to court directions which has for several months triggered a shortage of the crucial material in the construction sector.
The local extraction and trading of sand sector has also faced severe uncertainty over several years 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 which has banned it several times over concerns of environmental destruction of riverine ecosystems.
