“Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions”, says Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, “Transparency is the politics of managing mistrust”. As Goa’s mining minister goes on and off the radar time to time due to a serious health condition and his mining affected ministers, MLAs and MPs lead the real mining dependent people of Goa to nowhere, the fate of mining in Goa is not just about the mining-dependent anymore. The manner in which the narrative has been shifting from bringing in an ordinance to bypass Supreme Court Judgement to even amending the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act exclusively for Goa’s mining affected is turning out to be more than a farce. It is turning into the promise of institutionalising illegalities in the mining sector in Goa even as neighbouring Karnataka and distant Odisha successfully work hard to bring law and order into the industry.
Many Goenkars would often ask themselves – ‘We don’t live in the mining areas’, ‘Our daily bread and subsistence does not depend on the mining produce’ and even ‘they (the mining-dependent) doesn’t relate to our problems ranging from regional plan to CRZ violations to pollution’; so why should we care? The answer lies in the Constitution of India. Though the Minerals of Goa belong to the State of Goa under Article 295, “under the Public Trust Doctrine (Art 21 Right to Life), the state government is merely a trustee of natural resources for the people and especially future generations. In other words, the people of Goa own the minerals in common. Further, under the Intergenerational Equity Principle (Art 21 Right to Life), as we have inherited the minerals, we are simply custodians and must pass them on to future generations” (Goenchi Mati Manifesto). Cutting a long story, short, Goa’s minerals belong to each of its citizens. As such, mining resumption is the responsibility of each one of us Goans and our commitment should be to ensure that this mining is legal and lawful. Any effort to misguide Goa on an ordinance or an amendment that the rest of the country does not follow is not the special status that we seek but rather institutionalising of corruption to appease a chosen few mining barons and their championing mining area lawmakers.
Even as the clamour for restoration of mining desperately grows with the mining barons and mining dependant MLAs covertly and overtly mob-lising forces to pressurise the Government to resume mining the way Goa’s mining lobby fancies, there is a greater risk of not only institutionalising corruption by ignoring the fact that the same mining lobby owes Goa and Goans thousands of crores but also of a Government that plans to institutionalise crony capitalism avoiding auction of mining leases. Dear Goenkar, have you noticed how this Government, its mining MLAs, its fringe groups behave? Have coalition partners and the mining lobby deflected the illegal mining discourse? Nobody is talking about the mining loot anymore. Nobody is talking about the recovery of at least the first tranche of Rs 3400 crore owed by the mining companies for which notices were issued to them. While mining barons make a beeline to meet the ailing Mining/Chief Minister to lobby hard for a mutually beneficial situation, Goa’s Mining Department is dragging its foot on recovering the mining loot. Let Goans do not get befooled that those who hold the mining leases do not automatically own the minerals under the ground.
Yes, indeed it was the mining loot and no amount of backseat driving of the thousands of those who lost to mining closure by the mining companies can absolve the later of their sins. Check out the list of those who pointed out the illegal mining. The Supreme Court ruled that the last five years of mining before the ban was 100% illegal. Mining illegalities were qualified and quantified amongst others by the PAC Report, Shah Commission Report 1&2, CEC Report, EAC Report to MoEFCC, CEE/Gadgil report on EIAs, Shah Commission Report 3 and Report by 17 CAs and still continues to be investigated by a SIT, Lokayukta and the Enforcement Directorate. So many agencies cannot be wrong, yet, this Government has gobbled up those numbers and shelved those findings to unleash another new era of illegal mining. Move over PWD, Power, TCP and Revenue Departments; Mining is the single largest source of corruption in Goa which also makes it central to the reason for poor governance in Goa. And the next time you ignore the revival of appeasement mining, do not for forget the fact why Goa Government is always shaky and which sector is responsible for Goa’s poor state of governance.
If one lists out the things mining has done to Goa besides providing employment, the report card is pretty poor. Though mining never exceeded 7.5% of GSDP and provided a shockingly low amount of funds to Goa Government, it did destroy our paddy fields, choked our khazan lands and silted our rivers. From poisoning our xit, koddi and nustem to choking lakhs of lungs in the mining areas, mining’s contribution to the Goan economy has been a mixed bag. But when you bring in the number of mining revenues, that were embezzled by mining companies in connivance with Goa Government, every other scam pales in comparison. Did you know that the current system of mining leases (which this Government wants to continue via ordinance or amend the MMDR Act) has resulted in the loss of over 95% of the value of the minerals extracted? When Mining Minister Manohar Parrikar’s Govt was sworn in, ore and dumps worth over Rs 10,000 crore became the property of the State. Government could have in these past 20 months recovered over Rs 65,000 crore on account of illegal mining exceeding Rs 65,000 crore.
Parrikar also had the historic opportunity of completely redesigning the system as there existed no mining lease. Instead, his Government oversaw the questionable renewal of 88 leases. This Government not only gifted away mining leases it even backdated them resulting in the compromise of Goa and Goans’ claims on revenues from its mining resources. What has happened since was just like the way we lost 95% of the value of the mineral resources an additional loss of Rs. 79,000 crore resulting in mining losses skyrocketing to over Rs 144,000 crore!
Dear Goan (both the mining dependant and the rest of us), do you know what was denied to you by this government canoodling up to the mining lobby? The loss of Rs 144,000 crore meant that every individual Goan was denied nearly Rs 10 lakh per head. Doesn’t this remind us of how the BJP Government at the Centre promised Rs 15 lakh to every Indian with Black Money stacked overseas? Well, the money didn’t come back but many swindlers and embezzlers went either scot-free or fled overseas as Government of India looked the other way.
Doesn’t this focus on restarting mining, whatever it takes; without heeding to Supreme Court biding seems like a similar attempt to shift the focus from mining loot recovery and to making Goans believe that illegal mining is the new normal?
