Goa mining: BJP wants financial package from Centre

The Bharatiya Janata Party demanded that the Centre should step in with a financial package to ease the impending crisis in Goa due to halting of the mining industry.

BJP national spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the current situation on mining front in Goa is a "matter of great concern".

"The central government should give a package to Goa to ease the prevailing situation, before the mining activity begins in the state," Rudy told reporters.

Supporting the cause of people dependent on mining industry, Rudy said, "Workers were not responsible for the illegal mining activity and hence should be protected from bearing the brunt."

The state government has initiated the process to weed out illegal mining and set things right in this industry. "But Union Ministry of Environment and Forest's action of keeping in abeyance the Environment Clearances (ECs) was surprising," he said.

"We are surprised. What prompted the MoEF to supersede the action of Goa government?" he asked.

After Justice M B Shah Commission's report on illegal mining in Goa was tabled in the Parliament, the state government had suspended all the mining leases, asking the mine owners to submit their documents.

Few days after Goa government's action, MoEF had kept in abeyance all the ECs of the mines, furthering the trouble for the industry.