NT NETWORK
VASCO
Stating that the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 to which India is a signatory requires state parties to ensure a clean and healthy environment for every child, Sherwyn Correia, a class XII student of St Andrews Higher Secondary School, Vasco, who is 17-years-old strongly opposed all the three expansion projects of the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) on Friday.
He appealed to the concerned authorities to give due consideration to the principles of intergenerational equity and sustainable development, as well as the right of every child to have a clean healthy environment while considering the proposals to expand coal handling at MPT.
Sherwyn, who was the youngest speaker of the day, opposed all the three projects by the MPT citing “ill-effects that will have to be faced by the people of Vasco – children and youth in particular.”
He said, “Every day when I go to school and swipe my fingertip on my desk I get black coal dust. My school is located just across the road. If this is the amount of coal dust that settles on our desks, I cannot fathom the amount that each child has inhaled over the last several years. We have all been students at some point in our lives. A student who does not achieve the standards and requirements of a lower class and who does not pass the tests or exams is not promoted by the teachers to the next higher class. I feel that the same principle be applied to the coal handlers also. When they have failed to achieve the environmental standards how can they be permitted to handle three times the present volume? Won’t it be like giving a double promotion to a student who has failed all the subjects? MPT is hampering our future and also hampering our right to clean air and environment.”
Sherwyn recalled the words of famous Goan poet Manohar Rai Sardesai ‘Sobit Majhem Goem Sundor Majhem Goem-Sobit Goem and Sundor Goem’. He alleged that the MPT intends to make Goa a coal hub and coal corridor. He claimed that the rich and well to do people have moved out of Vasco to save themselves from the coal dust pollution but what about the thousands of people particularly children who cannot afford another home and who continue to suffer day. Giving an example of the paper presented by Dr Jorsan Fernandes on the second day of environmental public hearing, Sherwyn said that he spoke at length on the research findings of the impact on humans caused by coal dust pollution right from the unborn child in the mother’s womb.
“He pointed out that the poisonous chemical present in the coal is inhaled by the fish. When this fish is consumed by an expectant mother it is found to cause autism in the unborn child. Leachate from the coal stack yards containing heavy metals finds its way into the sea thus polluting the water.
I say this notwithstanding the claims of mitigation made by coal handlers in the EIA reports thus, the fish that is the staple food of Goans is toxic in nature,” added Sherwyn.
