In the tribal village of Cauvrem in South Goa, now people meet more often to decide their strategy against mining trucks, which are operating illegally in the locality resulting in destruction of paddy and chilly cultivation.

Protests have erupted in this village located 60 kms away from Panaji, the latest protest being on Saturday when 95 villagers were placed under arrest for blocking traffic.

"We will continue agitating till the menace is stopped. We have petitioned almost all the government agencies but the illegal truck operations don't stop," said Nilesh Gaonkar, activist, Cauvrem Adivasi Bachao Samiti.

The villagers frequently meet at Gatranchi Dev temple, a place where tribals hold their religious rituals.

"Its dust all over. Mines have devasted our village and the farms," he said.

Alike several other villages in the mining fiefdom, its difficult to reach to Cauvrem, a village which is home to 1,000 tribals from Velip and Gaonkar communities.

On the way, you come across huge six-wheeler trucks raising dust and dirt. Opposition to mining, especially illegal truck operations, runs deep in this part of South Goa.

The tribals who consider their mountain as sacred are aghast to see that a mining firm began excavating on a hill here. A month back, they launched a massive agitation and rushed to the office of Director of Mines in Panaji and got the permission to stop work at the mine site.

But woes did not end here as three existing mines continued with truck movements.

"This year, almost 90 per cent of the chilly cultivation has been damaged. Also, the paddy cultivation has not survived due to mining silt," Gaonkar said gesturing out to the fields.

The villagers have petitioned agriculture department, mines department and even transport department urging them to come to the village and inspect the conditions in Cauvrem.

"No one has turned up yet," Gaonkar said.

The tribals, who spent hours in the lock up of a local police station for blocking trucks on Saturday, have now decided to continue their agitation even today.

"Are we left with any other option," questioned Prabhakar Velip, a village elderly.

The villagers who were arrested for agitating has now filed ten different complaints with the superintendent of Police (South) against atrocities on them.

Of the ten applications, eight are of women, whose belongings like mangalsutra and earrings were lost in the melee. One of them was allegedly manhandled on the road by male constables. "They tore her saree on the street. Its a shameful act," Gaonkar said.

The women protestors have also decided to approach Goa state women's commission with a complaint against male police constables, who ruthlessly dragged them on Saturday.

Meanwhile, children in mining belt of Pale in the North Eastern Bicholim taluka of Goa are suffering as their schools are caught between the mining dumps and the roaring trucks.

The teachers claim that the pupils often suffer from the skin diseases and cold due to the flying dust that they inhale during their school time.

Almost a dozen of schools including the primary ones run by state government here sit in the dust due to the huge truck traffic every day.

As per a rough estimate, more then 1,000 students are directly affected in Bicholim taluka itself.

Passing through the long queue of mining trucks, in this belt transporting iron ore, one would find a government primary school at Tar-Surla.

The school has everything--four classrooms, for each standard, benches provided by mine owner-funded NGO Goa Mineral Foundation and a regular teacher.

But the number of students is discouraging. Over the years villages surrounding this primary school are abandoned by the people due to the intense mining here.

People have shifted to towns like Sanquelim, Mapusa and Ponda to get respite from the dust pollution. There are almost half a dozen mining firms which operate around this area extracting Iron ore which is exported to China and European countries.

Goa exports 45 million metric tonnes of ore annually through its 105 mining sites.

"We used to have full packed classes until few years. But in last five years, we have see that the number of students are going down," Vilas Naik, the school teacher, said.

At this government run primary school, there are 20 students.

Similar is the story at Tagore Educational Institute.

"The demand is simple. We cant stop the trucks, so we expect that the mining companies sprinkle water on the road so that the dust don't fly," Mahadev Naik, headmaster, Tagore Educational Institute, said.

Naik has a file full of communication addressed to mining firms including Vedanta Resources Sesa Goa urging them to take steps to ensure that school kids are spared from this dust pollution.

State's renowned environmentalist Ramesh Gawas disclosed that there is a primary school at Sonshi in Bicholim taluka which is located between three gigantic mining dumps.

State education director Celsa Pinto was not available for the comment on the issue. But education department officials claimed that they are helpless to solve the issue as permissions for these schools were granted much before mining intensified here.