If the claim of Chief Minister Parsekar, that the Union Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar has decided to revoke the suspension of Environment Clearances for select mining leases in Goa is correct, it will go down as one of the most detrimental decisions taken towards sustainable and transparent mining.
Irrespective of any logic or spin given, it is blatantly unacceptable that ten to twelve leases- of the big daddy mining companies- will be handpicked and their suspended Environment Clearances will be revoked, on the states subjective to so called assessment. We call this arbitrary and this smacks of a back room deal the Parsekar government has had with mine owners and not at all an exercise where each of these leases have been examined on all contentious counts.
Before revoking the order of suspension of the EC’s, the Ministry of Environment and Forests should first go into the reasons why these EC’s were suspended in the first place. The apprehensions which formed the basis of these suspensions were borne by further developments, as follows
The Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) asked mining companies operating in Goa to explain violations of ule 38 and 38 of the Mineral Concession Rules 1960. The CEC sought views of miners in Goa on four issues including placement of dumps outside lease boundaries, transfer of leases and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the buffer zone issue.
They were also asked why contiguous leases have not been combined but treated as separate leases, though Rule 38 of Mineral Concession Rules (MCR) 1960 required them to be combined.
The CEC also raised concerns over the dumping of overburden outside lease areas. Miners, however, argued that dumping outside lease was done “in the interest of mineral conservation” owing to the small size of Goan mineral concessions.
The question is on what basis can the EC’s of any lease come alive when none of the major issues that led to the closure of mining have been addressed. A High Court order asking for the renewal of all leases in Goa cannot at any point overrule serious concerns regarding Goan mining expressed by the Supreme Court.
Even if a view is taken that the Union Government’s January 2015 ordinance allows renewed leases to function till 2027, let us remember that this is not immune to legal scrutiny and challenges. Moreover none of the leases which have been renewed taking the shelter of the Bombay High Court order, have been done with the government defining why they are being renewed in the interest of mineral development. This wasn’t a casual line inserted by the Supreme Court in its judgment of April 2014 in Writ Petition 435. It meant that for every lease renewed, the Union Government had to specifically state why that renewal would be in the interest of mineral development. That has not been done and therefore the renewals themselves are invalid. The government also needs to inform whether these renewed leases have been notified and can the renewal process be over and closed till the notification of these renewals is done.
If the EC’s for the ten-odd leases are restored, it will be mockery of the principle of fair play. Here we have the Supreme Court recommending a 20 million ton cap annually for Goan iron ore exports and then we have the government of Goa restoring the EC’s for ten odd leases. Now if the combined EC limit of these leases is 20 million ton does it mean that there will be no further mining by any other lease holder, since 80-odd leases have been renewed. How’s that for a level playing field?
It must be noted that we have a Supreme Court monitored capping committee led by CR Babu studying what the cap should ultimately be on exports in Goa. There can be no decision on EC limits unless this cap is finalised.
While there is merit in the fact that mining should indeed be resumed, it is subject to all the checks and balances that the court has identified and the various expert committees are working on. The sudden restoration of EC’s in a manner so fraudulent, brings us to only one conclusion- that the powerful mining lobby overrides all inquiries, investigations, Supreme Court observations, so that the juggernaut of ten-odd powerful mining satraps rolls on.
