SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: Civil society groups have demanded that anyone convicted for illegal mining should be disqualified and that the extractives sector must follow best practices from other sectors.
Expressing concern over the inaction by governments against illegal miners, like ‘blacklisting’ them, various civil society organisations have written a series of letters to different Union Ministries, Chief Ministers of mineral rich States and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
The organisations include Goa Foundation, Environics Trust, Common Cause, Himalaya Niti Abhiyan, The Future We Need (TFWN) and Mineral Inheritors Rights Association (MIRA).
They had two sets of demands.
“First, as misappropriation of the shared inheritance of mineral wealth, anyone convicted for illegal mining should be disqualified under a variety of laws such as the PMLA, IBC and Economics Offences Act 1974,” said the group of organisations in a joint statement issued on Friday.
Their second demand is that the extractives sector (oil, gas and mining) must follow best practices from other sectors that manage wealth like for instance, the financial sector.
“People of low integrity cannot be allowed to manage our shared ‘jeydaad’. In keeping with the practices in the financial sector, violators of significant laws, including economic and environmental laws, must not be permitted to manage our shared inheritance of mineral wealth. This must apply at grant of a prospecting licence or mineral lease, on an ongoing basis as well as prior to any change in control,” they added.
“We earn the right to extract resources by respecting nature’s inherent value. Sustainability, integrity and due diligence are not just good ethics but also good economics. It is vital to apply global norms of ownership and background verifications of extractors, their past records, and conflicts of interest, etc. We advocate maintaining complete transparency and accountability in the entire sector,” said Vipul Mudgal, Director of ‘Common Cause’.
In a related development, they pointed out the Government of Odisha requires bidders to submit a bid letter stating, “I/We have not been convicted of illegal mining.”
However, the group of organisations pointed out there are companies that have been awarded mineral blocks despite having been convicted of illegal mining. A complaint has been filed by Lok Sakti Abhiyan in Odisha against the allocation of some blocks.
“In 2014, the Supreme Court of India ruled that all mining in Goa after 2007 was illegal. 100 per cent illegal. It is unthinkable that these same illegal miners can be involved in any way with mineral extraction in Goa or elsewhere in the country. That would be irresponsible and we strongly oppose it,” remarked Claude Alvares, director of Goa Foundation.
“Integrity due diligence is required in all sectors that manage wealth. We hope that industry associations such as FICCI and FIMI support our demands to exclude the corrupt from the mineral supply chain. Only if bad actors are blacklisted can honest enterprise be rewarded,” Rahul Basu of TFWN said.
“The government instead of using a fit and proper person test to screen mining companies and pre-empting illegal mining in the first place has changed the definition of illegality. This has emboldened all illegal miners who now have the audacity to challenge the sovereign right of the government to even tax them. We have to stem the rot as the Shah Commission pointed out in the past,” said Sreedhar Ramamurthi, managing trustee of the Environics Trust.
“Last year, we had examined the record of all the bidders for coal blocks auctioned in mid 2020, and found significant violations by all 42 bidders. How can such entities be permitted to manage our collective family gold,” asked Saswati Swetlena of MIRA.
They also referred to India’s National Mineral Policy which says: “Natural resources, including minerals, are a shared inheritance where the State is the trustee on behalf of the people to ensure that future generations receive the benefit of inheritance. State governments will endeavour to ensure that the full value of the extracted minerals is received by the State.”
Against that backdrop the group added, “States are merely trustees over the mineral wealth for the people and especially future generations. As custodians of this inheritance, it is our duty to ensure that our children inherit either the mineral wealth itself or its value. Mining/extraction is effectively the sale of this wealth. Royalties, auction premia, and the like are mineral sale proceeds, financial wealth in exchange for the family gold.”
They lamented that illegal mining has been documented in iron ore in Karnataka, Goa, Odisha, and Jharkhand and in a variety of other cases of illegal mining across minerals and the country.
They also rued the absence of adequate mechanisms to hold illegal miners accountable and undertake stringent actions such as blacklisting them from any mining activity.
“Any one violation whether it is economic, environmental, or social by the entity must be a good enough reason to disqualify the miners on the basis of questionable integrity and they should be prevented from managing our shared inheritance of mineral wealth,” the group added.
