Despite mining ban, Rs 35,000 cr scam, Parrikar learns no lessons

Panaji: ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ is a dictum which doesn’t cut much ice with the Goa government, especially when there’s mining involved. Here’s why.  The successive state governments’ sucking up to Goa’s notorious mining lobby has resulted in a Rs 35,000 crore illegal mining scam. It also resulted in a 19-month ban on all mining in the state, putting the jobs and businesses of a little less than 10 percent of the state’s 1.5 million residents at risk. But days after the Supreme Court lifted its ban and asked the BJP-led Goa government to form new mining guidelines, investigate and punish the guilty, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar appears to be already singing to the tunes played by the multi-billion dollar mining industry. His opponents accuse him of lacking in spine and more than willing to rejig the scales in favour of the same mining lobby which orchestrated the scam, once again. In his couple of interactions with the media, Parrikar has lambasted both the Justice MB Shah Commission report and Goa Foundation. The Commission had exposed the Rs 35,000 crore illegal mining scam, while the latter had petitioned the apex court, which resulted in the ban. But when it came to the mining magnates, Parrikar appeared to be at his chivalrous best. In fact, Parrikar is not only creating ‘legitimate’ ground for mining in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats, it is becoming evident (by Parrikar’s own statements) that the guilty mining companies may well get away by paying a mere penalty for illegally mining millions of tons of iron ore five years from 2007-2012. “We will impose penalty on the mining firms which have encroached upon the revenue (government) lands,” Parrikar has said when asked about action against mining firms indicted in the Justice MB Shah Commission report. Parrikar, whose proximity to the State’s key families, who by heredity, controlled the majority of Goa’s mining legacy since the Portuguese days, has been unwilling to give a serious thought to auctioning of mining leases, claiming auctioning was not mandatory. “The process of renewing leases will be transparent. All options will be considered,” Parrikar told a press conference last week. Even BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s public endorsement of public auctioning of national resources during his recent Vijay Sankalp rally in Goa appears to have no effect on Parrikar. When asked why auctioning of natural resources was not being seen as a chosen route, despite Modi’s advice, Parrikar told Firstpost: “I do not remember Modi saying it should be auctioned… But if he has it will be considered.” The last time Parrikar promised to “consider" all options before policy formation, was when the state government surprisingly allowed offshore casinos to transfer licences, enabling the sale of the Casino Carnival to Casino Pride. As an Opposition leader, Parrikar had been a vocal opponent of both the casino industry and the transfer policy, even publicly threatening to drown casinos in the Arabian sea. Such flip flops and lobby-play has forced greens like Claude Alvares to give up even a semblance of hope that the BJP-led coalition government will do justice to the mining lease renewal process. Alvares’ Goa Foundation had filed the petition in the apex court, eventually resulting in the ban on the state’s mining industry for nearly 19 months. Alvares says, he will be forced to knock on the SC’s doors again if Parrikar does not take the public auction route. “I do not trust him (Parrikar) to do the right thing,” Alvares told reporters. Goa’s mining multi-billion dollar mining industry has been in the hands of a few families, who had been bestowed the concessions virtually free of cost, some years before liberation from the over 450 years of colonial Portuguese rule. Through the Goa, Daman and Diu Mining Concessions (Abolition and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, 1987 passed by Parliament, all Portuguese concessions were deemed to have become leases under the Indian Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act. These leases have now been declared as expired on 22 November 2007 and will have to be allotted afresh according to the Supreme Court in its 21 April order. Parrikar has outright refused the option of setting up a state government-run mining corporation to take over the mining industry. Corporations, according to Parrikar “provide huge scope for corruption” and would not ensure best returns for the State, indirectly putting a question mark over the functioning of more than a dozen state-run corporations functioning currently. “Does that mean the corporations which are functioning as part of his government are corrupt too? Fortunately, whether to set up a corporation or not is not in the chief minister’s hands. It is a recommendation made by the Supreme Court,” says Christopher Fonseca a Left leader and a spokesperson of the Goa Mining People’s Front. The Goa government’s “last betrayal” as far as civil society activists is concerned is Parrikar’s rejection of the draft Western Ghats notification issued by the union ministry for Environment and Forests, crafted on the basis of two extensive studies conducted in the area. While rejecting the Draft on grounds that it had been prepared without consulting the state government, Parrikar in a letter to Moily has backed mining in the verdant region, identified by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as a global ecological hotspot. “If restrictive recommendations contained in the Report, ignoring the local constraints are accepted, it is bound to adversely impact mining completely in the State of Goa; thus ruining the economy of the State and unleashing deprivation due to loss of income opportunity and employment leading to below pay living standards thereby causing protest and dissent,” Parrikar has said in his letter to Moily, which was strategically leaked to the media after the Supreme Court judgement. The Goa government’s repeated largesse towards the mining industry, which has been the orchestrator of the biggest ever scam in the history of the State, gives activists like Ramesh Gauns no hope. “The entire machinery is being used to see how loopholes will be found in the laws, in the judgement. It wasn’t as if there weren’t any laws in place when the mining scam first started. The administration will now work out ways to bypass this judgement too,” Gauns claims. For seven years as leader of opposition Parrikar had led the charge against offshore casinos and illegal mining, calling both scams perpetrated by the Congress and its leaders.