It is clear that any way forward for the mining industrylies in rebuilding and fixing the absence of mining governance, which inreality is the basis of the Shah Commission report.
The government of Goa, in the previous Congress led regime,almost officially suspended all controls and became passive observers orwilling participants, in a free for all use of the state’s mineral resources bysome state actors and mostly by non-state actors. The sheer increase in the quantum of exportsfrom 2009 onwards, is not just an indicator but the reason for this mess. Froma range of 38.07 million tons in 2008-9, exports leapt to 54.03 million tons in2010-11. Both the pace and the overall quantum of exports led to a completecollapse of a virtually non-existent directorate of mines.
Every issue raised bythe Shah commission is linked to this quantum, from the EC clearances, tomining in forest areas, or absence of coordination between various departments,and most importantly transportation. While this collapse was not all tooobvious to the common man, what was coming was the sheer growth in the numberof players, many from outside Goa who had virtually nothing to do with mining.What was visible to Goans was their growing presence, their new cars and theirnewly bought bungalows. The discourse shifted from mining to how people gotrich quick and this angst was ploughed back to the industry.
Manohar Parrikar needs to address this issue of mining nongovernance. He has put together a fine team to cleanse this, in RK Verma andPrasanna Acharya as Principal SecretaryMines and Director Mines. The work starts now. There was life before the ShahCommission and there will now be life after it. The difference is, in theperiod before Shah, the mines department was looking at restructuring theprocess of mining administration to have greater controls and regulation on allaspects of mining. Post Shah, this can’t go forward unless some of the majorissues are addressed or re-addressed on priority.
The Parrikar government must respond to the Shah commissionby putting together a current fact sheet of mines that are not operating as perthe Water Act, The Air Act, the Environment Protection Act and the Wild LifeProtection Act. An inter-department teammust then immediately be drawn up, to inspect and see which were the specificleases operating without its consents during their time of the Commissionsinvestigations.
The lack of coordination, termed “absence of harmony” amongvarious departments, must yet again be addressed, but in a post Shah scenarioofficials in all departments, especially the mines and the pollution controlboard, should answer why they couldn’t even agree on the figures of working and non-working mines.
But the biggest culprit by far is the Department ofMines that put their hands up and didnot check the source of ore, the authenticity of excavation figures, thepassing off of dump workings as main workings, and showing pit workings onsurvey numbers where not a milligram of mining has been done (the DMG mine inPissurlem).
Nor did it keep an eye on the sudden influx of traders whoentered Goa, armed with false addresses, who joined the bandwagon of trading inore. A majority had interests, ranging from gutka to automobiles, but notmining. When the Shah Commission ordered the government to verify theirantecedents, it was revealed that out of 405 odd traders, over 300 had fakeaddresses. All of them had exported ore, whose antecedents were not checked.They exported on the basis of challans which were more often than not wereprepared by the exporter and signed by a DMG official. The suspension of six DMG officials,including drivers, is an indication of the extent of the rot in the minesdepartment.
That is the reason why the institutionalising of corruptionhas to be tackled in Goa, because the perpetrators are right here. If directorsneed to be criminally prosecuted and jailed, so be it. Let the previousgovernment understand this. No amount of political foreplay on the issue, bydragging in the BJP or Parrikar in the mining mess, can extract them out ofthis. It’s too deep. Digambar Kamat was not just the Chief Minister in the lastterm, he was the Minister of Mines for a period that transcended twogovernments. His statement that he has been named only once is a pathetic figleaf, when the entire system of mining administration has been indicted. Here is a General saying “my army may havebeen blamed but I am fine.”
The Congress brought in greed, not prosperity. ManoharParrikar must take mining down to manageable clean, transparent and sustainablelevels.
