Clarence Alvares
The last day of the just concluded Assembly session was just as a normal last day of the Monsoon session where most of the issues were tacked (half/full) and the Opposition was as usual not subtle. The main issue was restart of the Mining but a more serious issue of formalin prompt up where the coalition partners of the Govt were exposed to the Goans at large. The susegad Goenkar was awake with eyes wide open to this issue but the Ruling dispensation steered by the ‘I know all’ CM had the Opposition lose their boxing gloves in the dressing room itself.
Then came the main issue of Mining dependents who had been suffering since 2011 when the BJP when in the Opposition flattered its wings and yelled from the roof tops that there is a Rs 35 000 crore scam under the Congress Govt. Soon after taking office in 2012 the bright CM took a hasty step to check mate the central Congress Govt (Jayanty Natrajan to be precise) and banned Goa’s mining activity stock and barrel.
This decision was the most abruptly taken just to show ones supremacy and nothing was planned to streamline the mining activity. A thorough look into the Shah Commission report would have given the then Govt of the BJP an insight of the correct route to take in order to carry on with a sustainable mining activity.
As the pressure from the mining dependents was felt by the Govt during the Parliamentary elections of 2014 the aspirant BJP’s PM candidate gave assurance that the mining will start as soon as a BJP Govt will be installed at the Centre, of course the other was a – Special Status – which turned to be “Jumla”. In the run up to the 2016 elections the BJP felt the pressure even when they had released subsidy and other forms of benefits to the mining dependents. Hence in a hasty decision a few renewals of mining leases were cleared after taking crores as fees from the miners. Here too in a bid to get re-elected a proper process was not followed but the election results did have some ramifications of discontent from the people and the BJP had to do all types of brain wrecking mid night hobnobbing to remain in power at the cost of the sincere voters’ decision to bring in a change.
The poor people who had lost a living during 2012 mines’ closure took more loans and mortgaged whatever gold they had to get their vehicles and machinery on the road. Then came the Supreme Court’s ruling to stop the illegally started mining with a deadline of March 31, 2018. The Govt and its ministers were, may be, waiting for a miracle to happen. They just sat on the order with no action coming from their side. In the meantime the Govt and its Mines Department gave a free hand to the miners to dig as much as you want and store in dumps.
The big miners of the nation who are friends of the Central Govt. saw this opportunity of getting the Goan mines on auction and the local Govt was pressurised to sit idle till the expiry of the period without moving any petition in the honorable Supreme Court in favour of a sustainable mining to be done to help the mining dependents of Goa.
Now again it’s election time and the BJP party has realised that in order to get the two Lok Sabha MPs elected they have to beat their hand and legs to show the mining dependents that they are working on it but first get us elected even if these two seats are of very little importance to the Central leadership of the BJP.
Since the minerals have been extracted for the last 50 years or more the depleted state of our mines will not make the dependents live forever on the mining business and hence it’s the duty of the Govt to provide an alternative to this business side by side and hence extend the period of exhausting of Goan minerals so that the future generations too benefit by this ancestral wealth of Goa.
