Drinking water in Selaulim dam is under serious threat. The manganese content in the Selaulimreservoir is sizeable enough to ring the alarm bells. And though a cautiousState government is on record stating that water from Selaulim dam is safe, thetruth is far from it.
17 mines are operational within 200 meters distance and two within500 meters from the Selaulim reservoir. Over the years, huge quantity ofmanganese and other ore content has accumulated in the Salaulim reservoir, dueto unabated mining going on in the area.
Salcette and Mormugao talukas get drinking water from theSelaulim reservoir. The government needs to pull up its socks to find ways tocontrol manganese content entering in the water in Selaulim, before thesituation goes out of hand.
The issue was recently raised in the State legislativeassembly, where even the government had raised serious concern on the issue.
Due to the State government’s delay in coming out with a newmining policy subsequently led to the delay in taking action against “guilty”mining firms. If the government is serious in taking action, first they willhave to identify if the mining dumps are in government, communidade or privateland.
All the mines in the vicinity of Selaulim dam wereoperational since last many years. Sufficient precaution was not taken from thestart on the security of the dam. Further in the last one decade mining businessshot up in leaps and bounds. Quite a few senior Congress leaders were involvedin mining during the last Congress government, which led to negligence intaking action against illegalities.
A complaint has been registered at the Quepem police stationblaming seven mines for polluting the water in the Selaulim reservoir. V SDempo of Kurpem, Nur Karim mine of Kurdi, Figrdi mine of Kurpe, Sheikh Abdul Gafurkhanmine, Hiralal Khodidas mine, S. Kantilal mine and Vedanta mine are alloperating close to the Selaulim reservoir.
“Where have all these companies come from? Strong actionshould be initiated against them,” demanded Joseph Cardozo, spokesman of theWade-Kurdi Farmers Club.
MP Shantaram Naik had also raised the issue in Rajya Sabha.
Due to the carelessness of these mining companies the futureof the reservoir is in danger, as it provides drinking water to the whole of SouthGoa.
