No renewal of mining lease if legal norms not followed: CM
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 06 August 2012 13:14 IST
Chief minister Manohar Parrikar today reiterated that lease licenses of 80 operating mines would be either renewed or rejected, depending upon meeting all the legal requirements.
He also informed the Assembly that action has been initiated to cancel licenses of 10 active mines from the 40 leases identified in the Public Accounts Committee.
He has also assured the House that the mining policy, which would be placed in the House within two days, will fix specified time period for renewal of lease.
Parrikar agreed that the provision of deemed renewal benefits the mine lease holders as there is no time frame fixed for the renewal.
“However in the policy we have fixed the time frame to dispose of the renewal applications”, he said.
According to Parrikar, environmental clearances as well as several other guidelines are applicable for any lease to become active.
“We will scrutinize all the leases from all these legal angles and license would be renewed only if these requirements are met. Otherwise the lease license would be rejected”, he said emphatically.
Reply to the question raised by Curtorim MLA Alex Reginald Lourenco, the CM said he in the PAC report had indentified 40 leases, which had violated the norms, out of which 10 leases are active.
“The previous government had misinterpreted the condoning powers to grant the lease”, he said.
The government has now issued show cause notice to all these mines asking why their lease should not be cancelled.
This is the first step towards cancellation of their lease licenses, he added.
