Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: Goa’s first mining era, which commenced in 1929 with the grant of the first mining concession by the former Portuguese colonial government, has just ended.
The Goa government, by a series of orders issued on 4.5.2022 under the Mineral Concession Rules, has directed all 88 former leaseholders to surrender their leases to the government by 6 June 2022.
The orders were posted yesterday on the website of the Department of Mines & Geology.
The Goa Foundation, in a Facebook post, said that Persistence pays.
The Goa Foundation moved the Supreme Court with a petition to cancel all mining leases in Goa in 2012 on corruption and illegalities. The Supreme Court 2014 passed a judgment declaring that all mining activity in the state of Goa from November 2007 till September 2012 had been carried out without the benefit of valid leases, and hence it was all illegal.
The Goa government granted a second renewal to 88 mining leases in January 2015. The Goa Foundation challenged these orders in the Supreme Court. The Court invalidated the renewals on 7.2.2018. The Court ordered all mining operations to close by 15.3.2018.
The Foundation moved to the High Court in 2021 to recover the lease areas from the control of the former leaseholders. The petition is pending hearing after Court issued notice to the government. Without waiting for the Court to hear the matter, the Goa government itself issued the recovery of lease orders on 4.5.2022.
“When the next mining era begins, no one knows. It is in Goa’s best interest if it does not commence at all, until and unless the Department of Mines shows it is capable of handling this wealth belonging to all Goans with maturity, responsibility, and a total absence of crookedness,” Goa Foundation said.
