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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | One Month Later, Misgivings Abound About How New India's Updated Mineral Policy Will Be -Anuj Srivas

One Month Later, Misgivings Abound About How New India's Updated Mineral Policy Will Be -Anuj Srivas

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published Published on Oct 2, 2017   modified Modified on Oct 2, 2017
-TheWire.in

The K.R. Rao committee has only recently taken on board the views of civil society stakeholders, raising questions as to whether illegal mining and environmental issues will be properly addressed.

New Delhi:
A government committee in charge of revamping India’s 2008 mineral policy has belatedly agreed to rectify its industry-skewed composition by roping in several civil society stakeholders as ad-hoc members.

However, according to multiple industry and environmental experts, it is unclear whether the K.R. Rao committee’s eventual draft policy will reform or shake up an industry that has been characterised by rampant illegal mining and gross environmental violations over the last decade.

“What we are looking at mostly is tweaks with some changes. There will be new paragraphs added to address issues of inequity, illegal mining and environmental concerns,” a senior government official on the committee, who declined to be identified, told The Wire.

The panel was set up after a recent Supreme Court judgment on illegal iron ore mining in Odisha. On August 2, 2017, Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta, disposing of a petition filed by non-profit organisation Common Cause, ruled that 100% of the value of the iron and manganese ore that been mined illegally in the state would have to be recovered, dealing a blow to companies such as Tata Steel and Essel Mining.

As part of its judgment, the bench also ordered the Modi government to set up a committee that would have a fresh look at the 2008 national mineral policy, “especially on areas of conservation and development”.

Lack of representation

The K.R. Rao committee, set up in August 2017 as a result of this, didn’t get off to a great start.

The panel’s only non-government representatives were from general and mining-specific industry lobbies. What was missing was civil society stakeholders and representation from sections of India’s adivasi  population.

“We are distressed to discover that the only outside representatives on the Dr Rao committee are from business lobbies. No other stakeholders are present. The Ministry for Tribal Affairs and the 6th Schedule areas are not represented. Civil society is completely excluded from the discussion, as are our children and future generations, whose shared inheritance we are consuming, violating Intergenerational Equity,” the Goa Foundation, a well-known environmental organisation that has been involved in litigation against illegal mining, said in a note to the committee on September 13.

As experts have pointed out, the environmental fallout and land resettlement issues associated with India’s mining boom disproportionately affects local adivasi and tribal communities.

In the committee’s first three meetings (August 28, September 11 and September 26), there has been no representation from the tribal welfare or panchayati raj ministries.

Minutes of the second meeting show that Rao “informed the committee that suggestions and comments” from both ministries had been requested – ironically, the current minister for mines (Narendra Singh Tomar) also holds the rural development and panchayati raj portfolio.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 28 September, 2017, https://thewire.in/182397/india-mineral-policy/


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