In a video message, Alvarez, the director of the Goa Foundation, an environmental monitoring action group that was instrumental in getting the Supreme Court to ban illegal mining in the state in 2018, has also accused the BJP, the AAP and the Congress of not showing any interest in restarting mining in the coastal state following sustainability norms.
"We welcome the TMC accepting most of our proposals on how to do sustainable mining. In our view, the other parties still are not very keen on moving in the direction of mining which benefits the public. If you look at the Aam Aadmi Party, they have said they are going to start mining in six months. Well, the BJP has been in power for seven years, but they have not been able to restart mining.
"The Congress has no plan to restart mining, they do not know how to restart mining. Merely giving people options like 'we will restart mining in six months or three months' or whatever it is is basically fooling people," he said.
The TMC, the latest entrant in the electoral contest in Goa, has said cleaning up the mining lobby in the state is its key poll plank.
Earlier, the party had said it would follow the roadmap prepared by the Goa Foundation and called for the recovery of Rs 35,000 crore in dues from losses due to illegal mining, transparent and competitive bidding for extraction of ores, safeguarding of revenue by sale of ores by a state-run body and ensuring that its dividends are paid directly to people.
"If the TMC says that 'we have got a sustainable mining programme which we take over from the Goa Foundation's proposals', then we are very happy that they have done so," Alvares said. Polls to the 40-member Goa Assembly are due early next year.
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With PTI inputs.
