The house is burning and the horses have bolted. Chief Minister Parrikar was the first to leave- bowing to the call of duty which was obviously for a greater cause than the one he was elected for- to serve the people of Goa. He has since then wasted no time to pull out Mines Secretary Pawan Kumar Sain, who after the departure of R K Verma, had quietly grappled with the contentious department and was untying the various knots and complexities; and Mr Parimal Rai, though not directly connected with mining matters, was always around when key decision were taken, virtually across departments.
Meanwhile Director Mines Prasanna Acharya has made himself as scarce as a fully loaded iron ore barge sailing down the Mandovi. There are numerous complaints that the Director is desperate to move on and lead a life beyond mining, but is doing so when his current job doesn’t quite allow him to do so.
This brings us to the larger issue of the seriousness with which the Government is looking at crucial issues regarding mining and its resumption, in a post Parrikar situation. The body language of the government indicates that deliveries on mining were Mr Manohar Parrikar’s personal responsibility and commitments made by him, can be allowed to simmer, on the pretext of understanding the situation. It’s clear that the former Chief Minister had a personal stake in managing the situation since he was a party to creating it, though certainly not the only party, by banning mining in the first place. But the long list of issues that the government needs to close from renewal of mining eases, done but not executed, defending the appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court’s decision to renew 28 leases, to completing investigations on other violations, seem to be floating in space with no one to parent them.
The biggest blow will be to those who were on the threshold of gating their long pending loans on trucks and barges cleared tough a mix of minimal payment and maximum subsidies from the government to banks. The concerned nationalized banks have moved proposals to their respective boards for approval of partial waivers so that the remaining amounts can be covered through government subsidies and payments by borrowers. Much of this push has been due to the personal efforts of Mr Parrikar. But it’s still not a job fully done. There is widespread apprehension that with Mr Parrikar gone, these every banks may do a massive rethink on going ahead with this, like the Cooperative banks which have refused any loan waivers.
The larger question here is whether the Parsekar government will devote time to mining on a round the clock basis it needs to or live in denial by bypassing this blockage and doing a surgery to Goa’s economy through a different route like job creation through allied activity. If that happens the death knell to Goa’s mining could transform to a journey to its final resting place. Mining majors admit in private that it’s a disaster waiting to happen, as if what has happened was not bad enough. What is expected is a slowing down of immediate things that the Mines department needs to pay attention to because with no officers with domain knowledge, it will be akin to a bunch of novices in Standard 1 trying to write a PhD thesis.
The irony is that in this case, no one will even try. Goa’s mining repair, if not revival, is in the hands of those who do not even fathom that there has been a very serious accident.
