As the mining truck owners took to the streets demanding payments promised to them, the reality of battling with a huge crisis of failed expectations is only hitting home. Or is it? The fallout of the mining ban will be felt in the form of many such agitations as the government keeps going back on promises which impact these sections economically. At the end of the day, this becomes a battle of attrition due to the failed promises, not the hard reality of what the government can pay or not. These promises were made in haste to placate the out of work mining force, promises that are coming home to haunt the government.
Even half the Rs 2.5 lakh of the originally promised Rs 5 lakh to each owner/driver affected due to the closure of mining operations in the state has not been paid. The deadline of giving the funds before Ganesh Chaturthi is nearing and more than 9000 such truck drivers depend on these funds to celebrate the festival and use the funds to tide over for some time.
It’s a very tough road ahead for mining truck owners/drivers. Let’s refer to Herald’s own previous reportage on what the economic scenario for each truck owner will be. With a cap of 20 million tonnes annually, (keeping aside the CR Babu’s Committee’s recommendations which may be higher, but will be challenged) each truck owner will earn around Rs 63,000 a month, less than half his earnings during the golden period of mining. Quick calculations reveal that after paying off expenses, the owner will be left with a mere Rs 32,000 per truck. And, that is before paying his EMI which will be in the range of Rs 30,000 plus. Thus, if their demand of doubling the rate of transportation is not met, they are better off being off the road than carrying ore. And since figure is based just on the registered trucks in Goa, the actual share per truck owner will be less considering the number of unregistered trucks which will also get business.
At the same time the government is in no mood to bend over backwards to please mining truck owners. In fact Chief Minister Parsekar had literally snubbed his own MLAs from the mining belt Dr Pramod Sawant and Subhash Phaldesai when they pitched for not allowing outside truck owners to affect the business of local ones. The Chief Minister was clear that he would not prohibit outside trucks saying that “the truck owners are stretching it too far”.
“They even fight on not allowing truck owners from one village to another, just like tourist taxi operators, Speaker Sir”, he said on the floor of the House.
He then went on to say that the Goa government has done more than enough by paying compensation to the truck owners for the loss during mining ban period and had even worked out a one-time-settlement for the bank loans they had taken.
But promises don’t mean money in the bank or cash at hand and that is what the truck owners/ drivers want.
Needless to add, these rallies and protests will have a deep fallout politically. If the BJP won its South Goa Lok Sabha seat riding on the promises it made to the mining affected, the failure to deliver on them could be a big cause for its loss in these areas in the 2017 elections.
