Among the many movements which Goa has witnessed, in the last few years, Goenchi Mati deserves special mention, for it propounds a lofty ideal that the natural resources of a place are the wealth of the State and particularly of its people, who are the trustees of this treasure and have the bounden duty to preserve it or make proper use of it and pass the legacy to future generations. Goenchi Mati is a single issue movement, whose essential principle, as they themselves describe it, is that “minerals are a shared inheritance and hence it is our duty to protect them for future generations and only if we do that we may consume the fruit”. The movement is non-partisan and has its origin in the work of Goa Foundation in the infamous Goa mining case.
Some of the principles which Goenchi Mati espouses are:
That the people of Goa own the minerals in common. The State Government is merely a trustee of natural resources for the people and especially future generations.
As we have inherited the minerals, we are simply custodians and must pass them on to future generations (Intergenerational Equity).
Therefore, if we mine and we sell our mineral resources, we must ensure zero loss, ie. capture of the full economic rent (sale price minus cost of extraction and reasonable profit for miner). Any loss is a loss to all of us and future generations.
All the money received from our minerals must be saved in a Permanent Fund, as already implemented all over the globe. Like the minerals, the Permanent Fund will also be part of the commons. The Supreme Court has ordered the creation of a Permanent Fund for Goan iron ore and already Rs 94 crores is deposited.
Any real income (after inflation) from the Permanent Fund must only be distributed to all as a right of ownership, a Citizen’s Dividend. This is like the comunidade zonn, but paid to everyone.
What GMM is essentially advocating is respect for property rights of commoners. It also demands that citizens be made stakeholders, creating an endowment effect. Only in such circumstances, will mining be monitored. The creation of Citizens’ Dividend would eliminate dependence of the people on subsidies and doles of the Government, as they would receive an income from their own inheritance. GMM’s manifesto emphasizes that at “the core is the idea that natural resources are a shared inheritance and we must ensure that future generations also inherit what we did. If we do that, we may enjoy the fruit of our inherited capital. Any sale of natural resources is a sale of the commons, an inherited asset. Therefore, we must ensure we do not suffer a loss, or in other words we receive the full value. We must also save everything we receive in a new inheritable asset (one retains value indefinitely, usually precious metals, precious stones or land). If we maintain the new asset well (so the next generation receives their inheritance intact), we may enjoy the fruit, the sustainable income.”
The globe is today facing multiple challenges – economic, environmental, unabated poverty, rising inequality, corruption, autocracy and crony capitalism. Energy, real estate, minerals are the places where rent seekers dominate, and so does corruption.
Goenchi Mati further contends that Governments look at money received from sale of minerals as windfall revenue, not as sale of family gold or State’s treasure. Royalty is revenue receipt and no questions are asked as to the reasons for the sale of such a valued asset or whether any losses are made in such a sale. Hence, rent seekers get hold of minerals very cheap. It found that in Goa we lost more than 95% of the value of minerals – value calculated after extraction costs and generous profit. This problem is common to the whole of India and partly even the world over. This leads to a few becoming extremely rich, who then not only buy votes and influence elections but even determine and manipulate formation of Governments, their stability or otherwise. There is also a tendency, like it happened in Goa, to hurriedly extract whatever possible, without any controls, before people can figure out the damages caused.
The Supreme Court had ruled that all mining after 22.11.2007 was illegal, in effect a theft of our natural inheritance. Mining stopped only in September 2012, five years later. The value of minerals illegally mined during the Congress regime (2007-2012), was estimated at approximately Rs 65000 crores. Far from recovering the losses, the BJP Govt. renewed 88 leases backdated, without auction, which added a further estimated loss of 79000 crores, for the balance period of leases (extrapolated from earlier 95% losses) with a total loss of Rs 144,000 crore. The losses on this scam are equal to 2G Spectrum and Coal scams. Considering Goa’s size it eventually works out to 1000 times these two scams.
Though the principles and the manifesto of Goenchi Mati are clear and logical, and worthy of being implemented, many may find it too far-fetched to imagine that they would ever be acceptable to Governments, which have been thriving on illegal gains and corruption, particularly obtained from mining of minerals, coal, etc. Eventually, politicians do what the people insist on. If we harass the politicians enough, our children will bless us.
Associated closely with the movement are stalwarts like Claude Alvares, Rahul Basu, Dean D’Cruz, Dadu Mandrekar, Avertino Miranda, Darryl d’Souza and many others, who have been selflessly devoting their time, energies, talents and finances to such a noble cause. Surely the Movement needs to be carried forward with our support and encouragement, so that the desired results are achieved.
(The author is a retired banker)
