Panaji (Goa) Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar today said that he would be exposing the double-standard of the Congress party on the coal handling issue during the upcoming assembly session.
Parrikar took a dig at Congress leaders for speaking against the handling of the coal at Mormugao Port Trust claiming that the project was cleared during Congress rule in the centre.
Congress has been making statement against Parrikar led government accusing them of shielding coal handling facility at MPT which are leased out to Adani Murmagao Port Terminal Private Limited and South West Port Limited.
“The permissions for handling the coal at MPT was granted in the month of January, 2014 when Congress was in power in the centre. The MPT is governed by Central government,” the chief minister said offering rebuttal to the allegations of the opposition party.
“They are trying to create atmosphere that Adani is a favourite of BJP which is not true,” he said.
Parrikar today addressed a meeting of the BJP leaders who are representing different municipalities and panchayat bodies informing them about the factual position on coal handling facility and declaring state’s rivers as national waterways.
“We (BJP) told them (workers) that the state government has opposed expansion of the coal project and this thing is in public domain as we have written to the union environment ministry about it,” Parrikar said.
“I will give details during the upcoming assembly session. All these projects were sanctioned during Congress regime. We have brought to the notice of our workers that Congress are the brain behind these projects but are now pretending to be opposing them,” he said.
“We oppose pollution very strongly and we have already taken action by writing to central government to first stop any idea of expansion and also taken steps to reduce current pollution,” he said.
speaking about the issue of declaring Goa’s rivers as national waterways, the chief minister said he has also called for the meeting of MLAs and NGOs on December 11 to explain about the MoU which Goa government is intending to sign with Inland waterways authority limited.
“The MOU can be accepted as per our terms and condition. We will be making presentation about the MOU to the MLAs and NGOs,” he said.
Parrikar said that the union government will not decide anything without taking Goa government into confidence.
“Through the MOU we are having hundred percent control over the rivers but at the same time centre will be spending on cleaning the waterways, Parrikar said equating the situation to “we are having a cake and eating it too.”
He said that the rivers in Goa are notified as National waterways but it has been projected as if we have nationalized the rivers. “Nationalisation means ownership but declaring them national waterways is a different thing. The relation of Goans with the rivers has been for long so no one will bear the fact that we are giving ownership of rivers to someone else,” he said.
