Panjim: In a major relief to Mayem villagers, the Bombay High Court in Goa on Wednesday ordered that only 50 trucks be allowed to ply through Mayem village for five hours per day until the remaining 5,900 metric tonnes of iron is transported. That e-auction may not happen. Ore is transported.
Transport timings have been scheduled from 10 am to 12 noon and 2 pm to 5 pm.
Importantly, this allowance is also conditional on setting up a real-time monitoring mechanism
This includes two more pollution monitoring stations and two CCTV cameras with monitoring mechanism have been installed in the local gram panchayat.
After the hearing, lawyer Norma Alvares, representing petitioners The Miulkh Khazan Farmers Association, Mayem and NGO Goa Foundation, said the court was not happy with the real-time monitoring of iron ore transportation by the authorities.
A division bench of Justice Mahesh Sonak and Justice Valmiki SA Menezes also directed that once the remaining ore has been transported, no fresh transportation of iron ore should be done through village roads. It asked the mining company i.e. M/s Blue Globe Exports Pvt Ltd to follow the guidelines of the Ministry of Environment & Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) prohibiting the entry of mining trucks and traffic on village roads.
A limit of 50 trucks per day has been set against the 230 trucks plying on village roads since January 8 this year. On December 28 last year, the Directorate of Mines and Geology had granted transit permit to the mining company to transport 26,000 metric tonnes of ore from the Poira mine. The company began transporting the ore on January 8, and has already transported a large portion of the ore, with only 5,900 metric tons remaining to be transported.
Through the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) writ petition, the petitioners had prayed to stop the transportation of mined ore through the rural road of Mayem village of Bicholim taluka. He had pointed out that the Directorate of Mines and Geology had allowed transportation of iron ore through Mayem village road in May 2022 despite prohibiting transportation of mining dump through the same village road due to lack of pollution control measures. And the petition was disposed of after the private party filed an affidavit that they would not transport the ore through the Mayem village road.
The petitioners said that last week they had protested along with farmers to stop the transportation of ore through Mayem village, but the police detained them for about six hours and the transportation resumed under police protection. The road passing through Mayem village was never used for ore transportation in the past.
The petitioners feared that the attempt to reuse the village road for transportation of mineral ore would lead to fresh damage to the village road and would cause dust and noise pollution to the villagers and pose a serious threat to the village community.
