Next to agriculture, mining is the most important economic activity which generates substantial employment and money circulation in the remote and rural areas of Goa and hence keeping the people away from the already overcrowded cities. It is unfortunate that our government has not yet recognised it as an industry and it continues to stumble along with haphazard legislation as a ‘sector’ only.
While geologically India's mineralisation is similar to that of South Africa, Brazil, etc, we are one of the most underexplored countries and no detailed mapping of the mineral resources has been carried out. The MMDR Act was formulated in 1957 along with various rules, to regulate this sector, but at that time, the Periodic Table of elements contained only 108 elements with their respected minerals.
Now the periodic table contained 132 elements and correspondingly, their minerals have also been identified, with more elements being predicted, we can expect further developments in this field.
The Indian Mineral Policy broadly divided all minerals into major minerals (mainly used in the steel making industry) and minor minerals (mainly used in the construction and other sectors) considering the economic importance of the steel sector to the newly independent country as also the prevailing applications of the so called minor minerals, and the names are a reflection of the importance given to the minerals based upon the state of the economy at that time.
The leases for the major minerals were regulated by the Union Government and the administration of the minor minerals was given to the state government, under the structure set up then.
Now, in the recent times, this Administration and Regulation needs a relook based on the myriad applications including cosmetics, pharmaceutical, etc, developed for the minerals far beyond the confines of the original descriptions.
Look at the Indian Mineral production versus the imports (See Table): Production figures from Ministry of Mines Annual Report, 2016-17 and Import figures from Ministry of Commerce & Industry reports.
From these figures, it is observed that. We import approximately 10 times more than our production. It therefore becomes obvious that our Mineral Policy needs to be refined and relooked at. At the same time, various NGO approach the courts, claiming rampant irregular and illegal mining.
The Union government constituted committee under retired Judge of the Supreme Court - Justice Shah, claimed many illegalities in the manner in which mining was carried out in the various states. In Goa, The NGO’s led by Goa Foundation, Goa Pariyavaran , etc approached the Supreme Court claiming damage to the environment, rapacious illegal mining, etc. Simultaneously, the government stopped all mining in Oct 2012.
As a result all mining of iron ore came to a grinding halt followed by the historic decision of the Supreme Court in W/p 435 of Goa Foundation which found that all mines had violated the Laws as also that all leases had expired in 2007 since the deemed extension Rule did not have the support of the MMDR Act.
Subsequently the State Government removed the ban on mining coupled with Union Government restoring the Environmental Clearances and some mining resumed. In the meanwhile, the international prices of ore of Fe 58 per cent had fallen to about US $ 30.00 per dry metric tonne loaded on ship so it was not very lucrative.
In the meanwhile, the Goa Foundation matter came up for final disposal and they could prove before the Supreme Court that rapacious illegal mining had occurred at great cost to the environment and without attention to Intergenerational Equity, and the Court passed a scathing order stopping mining once again and directing Goa to proceed strictly with legal action against the illegalities committed as also to come out with a fresh policy for allocation of mining Leases coupled with fresh Environmental Clearances such that this not be repeated in future.