The government will indeed have to plough its way out of the quagmire that it finds itself in after the Supreme Court judgment, quashing its decision to renew 88 mining leases. While the observations of the Apex court and its remarks on actions or inactions taken by the executive, is a matter of public record and debate, no solutions will be found by looking back but only looking ahead. But unfortunately, that itself is a huge challenge to begin with.
It is given that there would come a time when leases would have to be won afresh but this judgement makes it too immediate – a month to be precise. A sudden stoppage also adds to the pressure of kick-starting the process of the grant of fresh leases and to do that it needs to decide and finalise the best route to be taken. At this point of time, the Supreme Court has still kept all the mining companies in the room by saying that “they are directed to stop all mining operations with effect from 16th March, 2018 UNTIL fresh mining leases (not fresh renewals or other renewals) are granted and fresh environmental clearances are granted”
However the journey from March 16th onwards is going be long and tedious. At the same time, there will be other sets of pressures, which may actually pose different challenges. If you recall during former Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar’s tenure, the restarting of mining was announced and he drove to one of the mining offices of an international mining major and symbolised the restarting of mining by breaking a coconut. The government was banking very heavily, politically and otherwise, for a re-start, even if it was truncated since mining operations kept the wheels of industry moving and the workforce placated. But now we have a situation where 6 MLAs, five from the BJP and 1 from MGP, despondent and uncertain of how they will go back to their mining dependent constituents.
But as these challenges are embraced and attempted to be met, there has to be serious look back at the kind of mining governance that has been in place during the time of the biggest mining irregularities. In addition to other irregularities pointed out by the Shah Commission, the fact that fly by night mining traders, without genuine addresses managed to transport and export ore, often on behalf of other lease holders and often by taking away stolen ore, left the government of the day exposed. Mining governance needs to be tightened at all points of time. Here the Apex court has asked the government to ensure that SIT investigations into the quantum of losses incurred due to illegal mining should be completed and the show cause notices issued to different mining companies on their mining activities, be acted upon and taken to its logical conclusion.
This is to ensure that when the fresh process of granting mining leases is concerned, all past issues are closed. But what will perhaps never be closed is that fact that while the state was getting looted, the government turned its back on the looters when it could have faced them head on.
But the bottom line here is that a clean-up in the genuine sense is always welcome but a closure of an industry easily for three years, just because the government did not oppose the protagonists of loot, is a very bitter pill to swallow for the common folk in the mining belt.
