Sources from Panaji stated that popular ecologist Gadgil said like in some other states, Goa, too, is witnessing activities which are driven by greed for unlimited profits, who headed a committee that authored a widely debated study on the Western Ghats a few years ago. He said, reacting to the worst ever floods in the southern state that "Certainly all sorts of problems are beginning to surface on the environmental front in the Western Ghats. Goa, of course, does not have Western Ghats which are as high as in Kerala, but he is sure Goa will also experience all sorts of problems”.
He said "You have seen it in Goa too and the Union government constituted Justice M B Shah Commission has estimated illegal profits of Rs 35,000 crore from illegal mining and there is also enormous profit in the business of stone quarrying while there is very little investment”.
Meanwhile the 73 year old expert said "In Goa,
they had asked him to look into the impact of mining on environment, where every
EIA suppressed fact about hydro logical impact of mining”. Moreover "On
`sadas' (plains) of Goa there are a lot of streams which are originating but
they don't mention about them in their EIA reports. All kind of false statements
are made in these reports”.
