Sudin hopeful of GoM meet on mining crisis

NT NETWORK

 

PANAJI

Minister for Public Works Ramakrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar on Saturday said that although he is unaware about the reason for the cancellation of the meeting with the group of ministers appointed by the Union government to discuss the current crisis faced by the state mining industry, he expects it to be convened soon.

The said meeting was to be held on October 13 in New Delhi.

The Centre’s group of ministers comprises Union Minister for Shipping Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Mines Narendra Singh Tomar and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Speaking to ‘The Navhind Times’, Dhavalikar said that he did not receive any official communication from the central group of ministers as

regards the cancellation of the October 13 meeting.

“However, when I met Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on October 12, the Chief Minister in my presence telephonically spoke to Gadkari and requested him to hold the meeting as soon as possible, and get the required work done,” he added.

Last month, the Chief Minister had submitted a proposal to the group of ministers urging its intervention to restart mining in the state.

Mining activities in the state had come to a halt on March 16, earlier this year, following a Supreme Court order.

Dhavalikar said the reluctance on the part of Parrikar to allocate important portfolios held by him such as finance, home, mining and geology, education, general administration and personnel to the senior cabinet ministers, would not affect the state administration in any way. “As it is, the Chief Minister is already clearing files of his departments from the hospital,” he noted.

Replying to a question as to whether the state cabinet ministers would meet next Wednesday on October 17, Dhavalikar said that no such meeting has been convened yet.

The cabinet ministers had met at the Secretariat in the absence of the Chief Minister on September 27 to review the functioning of the government.

However, the next two weeks did not witness any such meeting as many of the cabinet ministers were out of state.