india

Updated: Jan 07, 2019 23:57 IST

With the winter session of parliament nearly over and no sign of the promised amendment to help restart iron ore mining in Goa, things are increasingly bleak for the industry that was hoping to be up and running before this year’s Lok Sabha elections.

Shut since March 15, after the Supreme Court ruled that the ‘renewals’ of 88 mining leases by the state government in 2015 were illegal, the industry has pinned its hopes on an amendment to either the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) (MMDR) Act or the Goa Daman and Diu (Abolition of Concession and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, 1987 in order that it can avoid the process of auction as is now mandated by the MMDR Act.

On Monday, a group of around 300 mining dependents -- a bulk of whom are drivers and operators of trucks and other mining machinery now out of work -- confronted Goa public works department minister Sudin Dhavalikar over the continued impasse and no solution in sight to restart mining. Dhavalikar, in turn, promised them that he would secure an audience with Prime Minister Narendra Modi before January 16.

The dependents had organised a protest in Delhi to coincide with the start of the winter session of Parliament -- effectively the last full-fledged session of this government’s tenure-- hopeful that the amendment would be passed before it concludes. With the session drawing to a close, that dream appears over.

“We are trying all possible means to restart mining,” South Goa BJP MP Narendra Sawaikar said declining to comment further when asked what the fate of the promised amendments was.

Once the code of conduct comes into force, the decision will have to be put off until the new government takes charge. Besides the Lok Sabha elections, Goa is due for by-polls in two constituencies, whose dates could be announced over the coming days.

Puti Gaonkar, who leads the mining dependents, said that despite the session nearly ending, there was yet hope.

“They can yet pass an ordinance,” Gaonkar told Hindustan Times when asked whether he still held out hope that the amendment would be passed. “There is time. we will wait and see,” he said. He has in the past warned that a failure to restart mining would politically be the doom of the BJP in Goa.

With mining the mining industry the source of income to 75,000 families, the resumption of mining is a politically sensitive issue in Goa.

Earlier when reacting to news reports that the Union Law Ministry had rejected a proposal for an ordinance to help resume Goa’s mining, Sawaikar had assured that if not an ordinance, the amendment would be passed.

“It could be because they don’t want an ordinance but a regular bill,” Sawaikar had said adding that ultimately even an ordinance would have to be placed before Parliament. This was before the winter session of parliament could begin.

The opposition Congress has meanwhile scoffed at the government’s inability to find a solution to the problem despite promising they would do so.

“We had travelled to Delhi to express solidarity with the protesting dependents. But even leaders of the ruling party were sitting in protest. Protest against whom? It’s in their own hands to bring out a solution. It’s a shame that union ministers have to sit in protest against their own government,” Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said.

The party said they have been promised an all-party meeting to take stock of the situation.

When the Supreme Court lifted its ban on mining in Goa is 2014, it had ordered the state government to grant fresh leases and presented it with an opportunity to start with a clean state. Instead, the state government ‘renewed’ the leases the SC had deemed to have expired in 2007, leading to the SC to strike down these renewals in a judgement issued in February last year.

Faced with no option but the grant fresh leases through an auction, the state government is seeking to either undo amendments made to the law in 2015 which mandated the auction or -- as Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar sought in a letter to Union mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar -- “by altering the very basis of the Supreme Court judgement” and through ‘legislative cure’ extending the validity of Goa’s mining leases.

Goa’s mining industry dates back to the 1930s when mining began through Portuguese concessions and at its peak before it was banned in 2012 for large-scale illegalities the state was producing 54-million tons annually making it the biggest exporter.