NT NETWORK
PANAJI
To put an end to the cloud of doubts hovering over air pollution readings in mining leases, mining industry in the state is planning to approach three IITs for accurate assessment of air quality.
Mining companies have planned to turn to the prestigious IITs to develop a framework for monitoring air quality in mining areas to avoid another ‘Sonshi’ in future.
The companies have been in touch with two-three IITs for jointly developing a standard operating protocol to monitor air pollution. Once the framework is developed by the IITs, companies plan to ask the government to adopt it as SOP.
IIT-Dhanbad has been approached and efforts are on to talk to IIT-Mumbai and IIT-Kharagpur.
The iron ore mining industry is prepared to fund the project to remove hurdles in getting clearance and boost people’s confidence in air quality readings made in mining leases.
The companies said that they did not foresee difficulty in getting the government approval to the framework as the IIT-Dhanbad was roped in the past to study the road carrying capacity of iron ore in the state.
The guidelines formulated by the IITs will lay down basic norms such as the location of ambient air quality monitoring stations, the ideal number of monitoring stations in a particular lease area, frequency of monitoring, method of analysing the data, etc.
The Goa State Pollution Control Board has kept on hold the consent to operate to leaseholders in the mining village of Sonshi in Sattari taluka due to disparity in meter readings in its monitoring equipment vis-à-vis the equipment provided by the mining companies.
The industry claimed that monitoring equipment of the GSPCB are “poorly maintained and hence inaccurate”. They have asked for expert agency from outside to lay down basic guidelines in monitoring. On the other hand, a GSPCB report said the equipment used by companies have been tampered.
“With proper guidelines in place the reason for a deviation in readings between one machine and the rest can be pinpointed,” said a leaseholder.
The IITs are considered to be most prestigious and framework developed by them should be above suspicion, he said.
Air pollution at Sonshi is a major issue confronting the mining industry due to which the GSPCB has been insisting on hefty bank guarantees before granting the consent to operate.
The GSPCB has kept the consent to operate to 12 leaseholders at Sonshi on hold as it wants to study the pollution levels further.
Earlier studies of air pollution revealed deviating readings with the GSPCB readings twice or sometimes 10 times higher than readings of the mining companies.
