PANAJI
The Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC)-appointed expert committee to examine the views and objections of the State governments on Western Ghats Eco-Sensitive Areas (ESA) is likely to visit Goa this month for ground verification on the State’s submission.
The Goa government in its submission before the Union Ministry has proposed dropping 21 villages from the ESA list, based on the report submitted by the State appointed seven-member committee headed by Dr Devendra Pandey, former director general of Forest Survey of India. The committee has proposed 87 villages be categorised as ESA since they meet the criteria set out by the Ministry.
The Centre, in its draft notification, issued in August, had proposed 108 villages from Goa as ESA as against the earlier list of 99 villages.
Speaking to media persons on Sunday, Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira said following a request from Goa, the Ministry’s Expert Committee on ESA will be visiting the State, mostly likely this month to deliberate and also for a fact check with regards to the State’s proposal.
The committee, which is headed by Sanjay Kumar, former director-general of forest, will verify along with the State government whether its demands to omit villages marked as ESA are justified.
“We have demanded that many of the villages be dropped from the ESA list. We have substantiated our demand with a report of a team, consisting of senior scientific officers, people who have expertise in this field…,” Sequeira said.
The Minister said that the ESA committee had certain questions with regards to our submission and hence we recommended that they visit the State and those villages.
This would be the committee’s first field visit after the expiry of the 60-day window. Once finalised, villages marked as ESA will see a complete ban on mining, quarrying and sand mining as well as phasing out of existing mines in five years.
As per government proposal, 21 villages include 12 from Sattari, five from Dharbandora, three from Sanguem and one from Canacona taluka.
Of the total 87 villages proposed under ESA categories, 51 villages are from Sattari taluka, 23 villages from Sanguem, eight from Dharbandora, four from Canacona and one from Ponda.
A total of 1,247 sq kms of area in Goa is proposed for categorization under ESA.
