PANAJI | Jan 29, 2016: The Goa State Pollution Control Board on Thursday granted consent to four more mining leases for extracting iron ore, permitting an annual extraction limit of 1.5 million tonnes on a pro-rata basis, so as to fit into the 20-million-tonne cap on iron ore extraction fixed by the Supreme Court.

The decision to grant the consents to the four mining leases was taken at the 119th board meeting held here on Thursday after carefully examining the technical advisory committee recommendatory report on the inspected sites, which was placed before the board members.

The lease belonging to Geetabala Parulekar at Pissurlem has been permitted to extract 0.9MT, V G Quenim has been allowed to mine 0.197MT at Sonshi, N S Narvekar has been allowed to extract 0.39 MT of iron ore at Kalay and Dattaraj Velingkar has been granted consent to extract 0.07 MT of iron ore at Dharbandora.

The mining leases have been granted consent to operate under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.

GSPCB chairman Jose Noronha said the consent to operate has been granted with strict conditions including monitoring ambient air quality at the nearest habitat/schools.

Water quality monitoring of perennial streams, rivers and springs will have to be carried out from upstream, downstream and at the settling pond where the water is pumped out from the mining pit.

The board should carry out air quality monitoring from July to September.

“We are waiting for more applications. It now remains to give consent to extract only 5 MT of iron ore,” he added.

The board had earlier given consent to 56 mining leases with annual extraction limit of 13.78 million tonne and now with four more leases the cap on iron ore extraction has touched at 15 MT, while the balance will be filled up as and when the board receives applications.

(Source: http://www.navhindtimes.in/)