The Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) will decide on the consent applications under Air and Water Act for 61 mining leases on July 10.

A GSPCB team has already completed the inspection of the mining leases. Chairman of the GSPCB Jose Manuel Noronha said the a meeting of the technical advisory committee(TAC) of the Board has been convened on June 29 before which the report of the inspection team and all applications will be placed will be placed.

“The Board will meet on July 10 to take a decision as regards the consent under Air and Water Act, for these mines,” he said.

Site inspection

The GSPCB team has inspected the mining plans, transportation routes and collected samples from water bodies located around the 61 iron ore mines. The team has also identified a few places in each of these mining areas, for installing an ambient air quality monitoring station.

The inspection followed the directives issued to the GSPCB by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The Board has been asked to ensure adherence to all the terms and conditions laid down by the ministry while granting consent to the mines to operate.

Noronha said one of the conditions is that the Board should not grant ‘consent to operate’ to those mines using village roads for transportation of iron ore.

The private sector iron ore mining and exports in Goa are yet to resume after they were banned by Supreme Court in October 2012 following illegalities as pointed out by Shah Commission and even though the Court in May last year partially relaxed its order to allow extraction with a cap of 20 million tonnes a year.

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