The three important stages, Environmental Impact Assessment, compliance with Environment Clearance and Environmental Management Plans, leading to granting of mining clearance were found to be "highly deficient".
"The EIAs, ECs and EMPs were found to be highly deficient in information pertaining to major environmental parameters such as land use pattern, water resources, biodiversity, demographic profile, dependency of people on agriculture, air quality and impact of air pollution on people's health," it said.
ECs, it noted in its report released today, sanctioned as many as 182 mining leases with their total production amounting to an annual removal of 70 million tonnes of ore. It meant the removal of some 200 million tonnes of earth.
Issues like loss of agricultural productivity due to deposition of dust on the leaves, depletion of ground water and water supply, destruction of springs and other water sources and siltation of agricultural land and orchards have been ignored.
"It is necessary to consider the cumulative environmental impacts of such a huge turnover of soil in an ecologically sensitive area like the Western Ghats...There is no proper recognition of its impact on the water regime of the area under mining which includes a substantial fraction of the water catchment areas of the state," it said.