SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
October 20 was the end of the three months the government gave to restart mining. Goa is not even close to it. But even as the Mining Corporation will be formed, the manner of its working is yet to be worked out we must ask one main question: When the government says it will restart mining, does it see the tears on the faces of countless small mining workers whose lives have been ruined due to no fault of theirs, or is it looking at the mining baron whose activities have been termed illegal by the Supreme Court, who cumulatively owe the state at least Rs 3500 crore, if not more?
For 7 years the state and the mining barons have been trying to block the road map of closure of illegal mining and the restart of legal mining.
At every step eco-warriors like Claude Alvares and the Goa Foundation have had to spend months and years fighting each of these moves. Have you heard a single party that has ever governed Goa say even once that mining should be in the hands of the common Goan? Even after the formation of the Mining Corporation, have you heard of a single assurance given by any of the major parties that from now on all mining will be done by mine workers and the corporation will bring in the expertise to help carry out mining and look after the exports?
Are five or six mining barons more important or 60,000 people employed or connected through business in the mining sector?
The mining closure has impacted more than 250,000 livelihoods.
Mining was the only source of their livelihood.
Truck and other machinery worth crores have been idling away for more than two years.
Without mining activity loaned assets have already been repossessed by banks.
There has been widespread financial turmoil as a result of the abrupt end of mining and lack of effective financial support from the government.
The sudden ban disrupted the entire ecosystem of allied industries such as logistics suppliers, truck companies barge owners, equipment owners.
In 2012 there were about 12,000 truck owners. This reduced to 5000 in 2020.
There were 366 small and large barges. Each barge employed about five people and a big barge employed nine people.
They had to bear these hardships because the government and mining barns carried out mining activity in various ways that were termed illegal by the Apex court. There was:
- Siltation in agricultural fields
- Destruction of farming land and water supply of villages
- Village roads were being jammed by mining trucks
- High rate of accidents
- Toxic waste had polluted rivers and farmland and destroyed forest habitats
The solution is simple: Mining itself is not a dirty word. It is the state protection of illegal mining and the system working for barons and not the common man that is dirty
While the Mining Corporation Bill has been introduced, we see the old tricks are being played with talk of the big mining daddies getting in through the back door as “experts” with an experience of mining. We can easily ask that when mining concessions were given to their ancestors, were they, mining experts, then? The expertise was gathered over a period of time. Goan mining workers and those involved in allied mining activity understand mining processes much more than we give them credit for. The state on its part can engage geologists, scientists and the experts under the Mining Corporation and give mining contracts to locals in the mining areas. Mining engineers can be also hired by the mining corporation and deputed to different mining leases. If there is a will to be with the common Goan and not resort to the old tricks of siding only with the big daddies, this will work and work well.
From renewing 88 mining leases all on the same day to illegally transporting ore from dumps after the cut off period, to allowing illegal transportation of ore through fake challans to fake mining companies with fake addresses flourishing, the state had not just watched but also contributed to illegal mining activity. The excuse was that mining leases (which should not have been renewed and then struck down by the court) were renewed because the common man was losing livelihood was hollow. It was done because the state had no funds and wanted the lease rentals to solve its financial crisis and also benefit the mining barons and help them restart their businesses. It had NOTHING to do with the common mining worker.
Mining can be a common man’s honest profession if need and not greed is the basis. It need not be a rich man’s sport
What do you think comes to mind when you think of mining? Massive richness, estates, fancy cars, mansions in the UK and other places, private jets.
What mining can be and should be, is the common man being the owner of the state’s mineral resources and the state being the custodian of such resources. Mining can then be limited, done in a sustainable way without plundering the state’s natural resources, and with common people earning their livelihoods. And the profits earned for exports can be out back in developing mining areas and rehabilitating those who lost livelihoods.
There are only two things needed for mining to restart: 1) Honesty and Transparency 2) Keeping the common man’s interests in front and doing it for him and him alone and not big barons either from Goa or outside the state.
