The Chief Minister of Goa and his elected mining MLAs have been putting up a false front of trying to solve the deepening crisis over the rates for the transportation of ore. In reality the mining MLAs have personal vested interests which do not allow them to play fair with mining truck owners. As stake holders in the mining business, who make profits from their association with mining companies, the mining MLAs of the BJP from Sanvordem, Curchorem, Sanguem and Sakhali have no business to arbitrate on the issue, while keeping their business interests alive with mining companies.
It is akin, actually even worse, than a Judge hearing a case involving a party who he has been associated with. It is actually akin to a judge being a business partner of a company whose case he is hearing. In the past fortnight, the bogey being bandied by mining companies that there is widespread resentment against those going to court to stop mining-name Mr Claude Alvares of Goa Foundation, has been truly exposed by a very real agitation for fair rates for ore transportation for mining truckers, by local Goan truckers.
With their futures sealed due to the mining ban, they were hoping for a fresh start, as transportation of auctioned ore and the hope of transporting long lying dumps, at rates prevalent before the mining ban, became a possibility. With big Daddy Sesa Sterlite (now known as Vedanta Limited) in the middle of intense ore transport operations, the focus quickly shifted to the rates for transportation offered by them.
However it is important to understand that though the rates for ore transportation is the significant outer issue, the inner realities are more complex. At the heart of the issue is the fact that between the four mining MLAs, Ganesh Gaonkar, Pramod Sawant, Nilesh Cabral and Subhash Phaldesai, they either own trucks directly or through family members, which are contracted to Sesa Goa or one of the other major mining companies. Thus from e-auctioning, to truck transportation to barge operations, the mining MLAs are heavily into the mining business. It was no different during the Congress regime. Therefore with mining transportation becoming a reality even if mining extraction isn’t quite, (with lease renewals being challenged), the powerful MLAs are seeking to secure their own businesses first before allowing other truck owners to do business. The genesis of not giving them rates which will allow them to do business viably, stems from the need to cover their own turf, within the rapidly shrinking mining business pie.
Imagine then, what kind of arbitrators, these MLAs would be, pretending to be neutral go betweens between the truckers and Sesa (Vedanta Ltd), when their real interests lie in not sharing the business by spreading it thin. Chief Minister Parsekar also understands that mining daddies will not pay more while the trucks under the control of his MLAs need to run. The Chief Minister must understand that not just his loyalty, but his duty to do service should benefit the mining affected of Goa first and then the mining giants. But this is not a formula that works for either the government or the mining companies who need to appropriate every little profit in an extremely uncertain world.
The right thing to do would be for the state to step in and fund the viability gap between Rs 8 per ton per kilometer of ore transported and a little over Rs 11 and ensure than not just the e auctioned ore but dumps and other material are cleared. But most importantly trust can only be regained, once the mining MLAs recuse themselves from any committee set up to find a solution to the mining transportation crisis because they are not trusted to play fair. The Chief Minister should also realise that he cannot be the ‘CM’ of mining companies only, because his handling of the crisis conveys that impression very strongly.
