By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: The Naveen Patnaik led BJD Government in Odisha will find it very hard to collect the fine amount of Rs 17,576 Crore imposed on several illegal mine owners based in Joda-Koira-Rairangpur-Sukinda mining circles of State’s mineral rich districts of Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Jajpur and Mayurbhanj if the Narendra Modi led Government go ahead with the proposed reforms in Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act-2015. The mines ministry notice has invited comments and suggestions from the general public, states and Union Territories, industry and other stakeholders till September 3.
Basing on MMDR Act -2015, the Supreme Court had in August 2017, imposed a fine amount of Rs 17,576 Crores on over a dozen over mines owners for illegal mining, forest and green laws violations in Odisha between 2001 to 2011 following several probe reports including Justice MB Shah Commission.
One of the proposed amendments will change the very definition of “illegal mining”. Once the amendment is passed, any violation within the mining lease area – whether over-extraction of minerals beyond the mining plan or by flouting environmental and forest laws – will no longer be considered “illegal mining”.This will be a bonanza for mining companies. Instead of using the Supreme Court’s judgement as a precedent to get mining companies that have violated the law to pay up, the Modi government is amending the law, seemingly to let them off the hook.
“If the Union Mines Ministry of Modi Government goes ahead with this kind of reforms, such recoveries will not be possible in the future and the Naveen Patnaik led Government will face tough time in getting Rs 17,576 Crore from illegal mine owners,” added an Industry expert in Bhubaneswar.
It may be noted here that in January 2017, the Ministry of Mines had submitted an affidavit in the Odisha mining case in the Supreme Court, supporting an expansive interpretation of Section 21(5) of the MMDR Act, from which the definition of illegal mining flows. The ministry said the provisions “would apply to all minerals raised without any lawful authority, be it forest clearances or environment clearances or any other such legal requirements”. Three years later, what has prompted the Modi government to take a full U-turn?And why is the government pushing through the amendments in such haste?
The ministry has also proposed amending Sections 10A(2)(b) and 10A(2)(c) of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 to pave way for auctioning of a large number of potential leases currently blocked in legacy cases. Sources said revenues of Rs 40 lakh crore will be generated through transparent auctions by repealing Section 10A (2)(b and c) of MMDR Act.
“The cases coming under Section 10A(2)(c) of the Act, which stood extinguished on January 12, 2017 as per law, but are still litigated or pursued unnecessarily at various levels, need to be brought to a closure to end the policy stalemate,” the Ministry said in a notice dated August 24.Cases under Section 10A(2)(b) are still disputed in the absence of a specific sunset clause in the act, and they have not reached closure yet, it said. In Odisha in last bidding, the premiums went as high as 150%, and merchant miners are at the losing end.
Sources said that the provision of section 10(A)2 B and C was inserted in MMDR Amendment Act 2015 to safe guard the interest of ML/PL holders whose cases were pending with different State Government at that time .These applications were filed long back as per the prevalent act as applicable in that time. Due to crawling process of government machineries these applications could not be converted in to mining leases in time bound manner. When some massive changes took place on January 12, 2015, the interest of these cases were well safeguarded by bringing the provisions of 10 A2B and 2 C. Though there was a time limit of 2 years in case of 10 A 2C but no time line was fixed in case of 10 A 2B, they said.
Different state govt kept pending all cases of 10 A 2 B for almost 5 years and no conclusive decision was taken over these cases. Now by just one stroke of pen all these cases will be scraped.In these last 5 years, government kept a blindfold over these cases, which is why the cases couldn’t be processed timely. If Central govt didn’t want to allot these cases on mere royalty basis then why government kept these cases in saving clause under 10 A2 B in MMDR Act 2015.Those applicants have put lot of money, time and efforts to keep their respective cases alive and waited for almost 5 years after enactment of amended act, they argued.
Now government want to allot all these blocks through auction process ,as the recent auction held in Odisha fetched very attractive premium and this has completely changed the mind set of state and central government. The second case pertaining to early termination of validity of captive mines by 5 years. The captive mining leases coming under 8A5 category were extended by almost 15 years ie upto 31.03.2030 mainly belonging to Tatas . Now early termination of the captive mines and scraping the provisions of right of first refusal creates lot of doubt at this stage, one of the Koira , Sundargarh based Mines owner said .
