New Delhi | Oct 24, 2017: The first draft of a government committee’s effort to revamp India’s national minerals policy – mandated as part of a recent Supreme Court judgement that slammed illegal mining in Odisha – retains the broad structure of the earlier 2008 policy while adding new paragraphs on illegal mining, sustainable development, compensating local tribal populations affected by industrial mining and responsible mine closure.
Civil society experts and environmentalists that The Wire spoke to believe that the changes, while helpful, may not do much to shake up an industry that over the last eight years has been marked by illegal and excess mining, environmental violations and unequal distribution of gains.
In August 2017, Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta ruled that 100% of the value of the iron and manganese ore that been illegally mined in Odisha would have to be recovered. As part of its judgement, the bench specifically singled out the ineffectiveness of the 2008 minerals policy while calling for a “fresh and more effective, meaningful and implementable policy”.
“The National Mineral Policy, 2008 seems to be only on paper and is not being enforced perhaps due to the involvement of very powerful vested interests or a failure of nerve. We are of opinion that the National Mineral Policy, 2008 is almost a decade old and a variety of changes have taken place since then, including (unfortunately) the advent of rapacious mining in several parts of the country. Therefore, it is high time that the Union of India revisits the National Mineral Policy, 2008 and announces a fresh and more effective, meaningful and implementable policy within the next few months,” the justices noted in their order.
In September, The Wire reported on the workings of the K.R. Rao committee that been set up to fulfil the Supreme Court judgment and the concerns expressed both by industry and environmentalists.
Illegal mining
How effective, meaningful and implementable – in the words of the Supreme Court – is the new policy? The Wire – which accessed a copy of the first draft (it will soon be released for public consultation after which it may be revised based on stakeholder input) – breaks down the new changes.
Over the last few years, it has become clear that mining regulations have failed to clamp down on illegal mining everywhere from Karnataka to Goa. The 2008 policy made only two references to illegal mining, both in a mostly inconsequential manner.
The preamble of the 2017 policy has been tweaked to acknowledge that an “efficient regulatory mechanism with high penetration of IT and e-governance” needs to be put in place. It also devotes a whole paragraph (Section 3.4, shown below) to tackling the problem of illegal mining through various technological methods.
“The advantages of IT and remote sensing technology shall be leveraged for ensuring a monitoring system which is transparent, bias-free, and one that has minimum human interference and effective deterrence effect. An effective follow-up action at various levels through effective coordination among various agencies will ensure prevention and curb illegal mining. In order to reduce human interface to obviate discretion and to promote transparency, physical inspections of mines shall gradually be replaced by virtual inspections by utilizing interventions from the areas of information technology, space technology and IT enabled services.”
While stakeholders have welcomed the addition of this paragraph, others point out that doing away with physical inspections (even in a phased manner) would be unwise.
Environmental action group Goa Foundation has pointed out, in its representation to the committee, that what is really needed is a mineral supply chain audit agency that will detect and prevent under-invoicing and other value leakages.
The first draft of the 2017 policy makes no reference to this even though this practice has become increasingly common. For instance, Indian income tax authorities detected under-invoicing to the tune of nearly Rs 90 crore in Karnataka by a company run by the Reddy brothers. In Goa in 2014, the enforcement directorate’s probe into illegal mining placed under-invoicing as a top priority – in addition to the obvious consequences of tax evasion, under-invoicing also inevitably leads to excess mining.
Global standards
Another currently missing aspect that civil society stakeholders have pushed for is having India move towards joining the ‘Extractive Industry Transparency’ – a global standard that is currently an effective practice for controlling corruption. As The Wire reported, while this was brought up during the committee’s discussions last month, it was quickly dismissed by an industry representative, who joked that by adopting these standards it would make it difficult for companies to get bank loans.
Sustainable development and mining
The draft mineral policy also adds substantive paragraphs on ecologically-sensitive mining – although the bulk portion of this comes from adding portions of the government’s 2011 ‘Sustainable Development Framework’. This framework was also referenced in the 2008 policy but not added as it would take another three years for it to be finalised.
(Source: https://thewire.in/)