Piyush Goyal, minister of state with independent charge for power, coal, new & renewable energy and mines, launched MSS from New Delhi and he also interacted with media-persons across the country.
Goyal said, “MSS is a culmination of all the efforts taken to bring transparency and also engagement with stakeholders.”
MSS is a satellite based monitoring system, which can provide a trigger for any activity happening within 500 meters outside the mining lease area. So, this system will issue a trigger if someone is either mining outside the lease area or dumping outside the lease area or indulging in any other activity.
The mines ministry has geo-referenced khasra maps of mining leases across the country. These maps are superimposed on new images taken by satellite to check if any illegal activity is happening. MSS has been hosted on the portal of National Centre of Geo-Informatics Portal.
Besides, the mines ministry is also working on an app, which people will be able to install on their phones. Using this app, people will be able to upload images, which will alert the state government’s mining department and mines ministry about any illegal activity happening.
Goyal said, “The identity of the person, who is disclosing the information, will be kept confidential.”
Once an illegality is found using images, the officers of state’s mining department will be alerted to go and do field checks so that illegality can be verified and corrective action can be taken.
When asked if MSS can also help people in keeping a tab on illegal excavation of ore happening inside mining leases, Goyal replied, “The satellite system cannot help us in knowing about excavation of ore. However, we have different set of rules to prevent illegal excavation of ore.”
MSS will be applicable to all kinds of major and minor minerals including iron ore, sand, limestone, granite and etc. This system is expected to bring transparency in Goa since iron ore mining is a major industry in the state.
The officials of mines ministry also informed that it will be under the state government’s purview to take action against wrongdoers found using MSS.
MSS has already generated 42 triggers for Goa. Only Madhya-Pradesh, at 46, has higher number of triggers than Goa in India.
Dr YG Kale, regional controller of mines for Goa from Indian Bureau of Mines, said, “When we ran MSS on test basis in Goa, we found 42 triggers. But, these are just triggers; it doesn’t necessarily mean these are illegalities. Previously, dumping was allowed outside lease area, which might also have resulted in triggers.”
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Greens root for
holistic reforms
Environmentalists have said that just implementing mining surveillance system (MSS) in Goa will not help unless there are holistic reforms in the way mining is done in the state.
MSS is mostly aimed at checking if certain illegal activities are happening within 500 meters of mining lease boundary.
Ramesh Gawas, environmentalist, said, “Much of the illegalities were happening inside the mining lease areas, wherein mining companies were excavating more iron ore than they were allowed to. This is the most important concern about mining.”
Gawas continued, “MSS will not help if companies go on illegally excavating ore inside the lease area, while the system keeps on throwing triggers about the illegalities outside the lease area. Therefore, it is extremely important to ensure that companies don’t excavate more ore than they are permitted to inside the lease areas.”
Claude Alvares from Goa Foundation, said, “Even right now, there are many complaints filed at the mining department, which are not being looked into properly. To ensure responsible mining in the state, we need technical people in the mining department, who understand mining.”
Alvares continued, “In the last assembly session, a question was asked about staff at mining department. It was replied that their staff is same as it was in 2012, when mining was banned. This shows that the mining department still does not have geologists.”
Environmentalists said that per se MSS is not bad, but things will not improve unless steps are taken to bring in controls at every step of mining activity.
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