Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: The State Government has initiated a process to grant sand mining permits in River Chapora, based on the preliminary report submitted by the NIO.
The Chief Minister, Dr Pramod Sawant, said that NIO has submitted a preliminary report on the Chapora river while a report on Mandovi is awaited.
“NIO has submitted a preliminary report of Chapora river while a report on Mandovi is awaited; State Government has initiated a process to grant sand mining permits in River Chapora,” said CM Sawant.
He said that based on the report, we have started the process of renewing the sand mining permits.
He also said that sand deposition concentration will also be taken into account.
Sand extraction in the State has been halted for more than three years following an order from the High Court of Bombay at Goa.
Goa State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (GSEIAA), in October 2021, granted EC to North Goa Collector to carry out sand mining in four zones of River Chapora manually by traditional communities. However, the same is challenged before the NGT.
Taking note that illegal sand mining continues unabated in Goa’s Pernem area, the High Court of Bombay at Goa had recently asked government officials, including the Chief Secretary and the Director-General of Police (DGP), to file affidavits in the matter.
The Goa-SEIAA had approved sand mining in four stretches of River Chapora at its meeting held on October 5, 2021. The extraction in the four zones where the activity has been approved has to be carried out only by the manual method, the Goa-SEIAA had said.
To begin with, sand extraction in these four zones will take up only 50% of capacity for the first three years. The capacity thereafter will be decided after this three-year period ends, the Goa-SEIAA had stated.
