Panaji Port was illegal mineral export gateway: Official

PANAJI: The Panaji Port in Goa could have served as a gateway for the export of 
nearly five million tonnes of illegally extracted iron ore, a top official has 
said. 

P. Mara Pandiyan, chairman of the Mormugao Port Trust, Goa's only major port, 
has written this in a Sep 15 letter to the state Chief Secretary Sanjiv 
Srivastava. 

Pandiyan's letter clearly holds the state government responsible for allowing 
five million tonnes of illegally extracted ore to be exported out of Goa. 

"As far as the Panaji Port is concerned, the whole operation is falling within 
the administrative ambit of the state government from the point of licensing 
mines, movement of iron ore by trucks to the loading point, loading of iron ore 
into the barges, movement of barges through the rivers and thereafter loading 
into the ship," Pandiyan, an Indian Administrative Service official said. 

"It is estimated about five million tonnes have been exported through the 
Panaji Port as unaccounted iron ore," Pandiyan stated. 

Urging the chief secretary to suspend the operations of the Panaji minor port 
in "national interest", Pandiyan said the port did not have any surveillance 
mechanism to monitor the quantity of ore exported. 

The movement of ships has to be monitored by Vessel Traffic Management System, 
a sea surveillance method, but "Panaji Port does not have this surveillance 
system", Pandiyan said. 

"The barges carrying unaccounted illegal ore have access to the ships at Panaji 
Port. Some of the exporters seem to have taken advantage of the lack of bare 
minimum facilities at Panaji Port," the letter further states. 

"Mormugao Port Trust has been examining the operational requirement of Panaji 
Port for quite some time. Panaji Port exists only for namesake on record. It 
does not have any berth. It operates as an 'outer anchorage port' wherein any 
exporter can load anything to the ship, and does not follow the security 
norms," he added. 

Goa's illegal mining scam has been pegged at Rs.10,000 crore by ruling Congress 
legislator Dayanand Narvekar during his deposition to the Justice M.B. Shah 
commission appointed by the Supreme Court to probe illegal iron and manganese 
ore in the country. 

Goa extracted nearly 54 million tonnes during the last financial year according 
to official data. The opposition claims 20 per cent of the exported ore was 
illegally extracted.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/indl-goods-/-svs/metals-mining/panaji-port-was-illegal-mineral-export-gateway-official/articleshow/10027996.cms

~Avelino


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