Why Supreme Court action in Goa is nudge to honour rights to commons

Why Supreme Court action in Goa is nudge to honour rights to commons

Context:

• The Supreme Court quashed all iron ore mining leases in Goa, two days before the deadline for public feedback to the draft National Mineral Policy (NMP) 2018.
• The court had mandated the National Mineral Policy on September, 2017 saying the older, 2008 policy was not being enforced perhaps due to the involvement of very powerful vested interests or a failure of nerve.

Background:

• Back in October 2012, the top court had suspended iron ore mining and transportation in Goa, following the report of the Justice M B Shah Commission on illegal mining.
• In April that year, the court had ordered a 10% levy on the sale value of ore to set up a Goa Permanent Fund (GPF) for protection of intergenerational equity.
• So when the SC directed the Centre to revise NMP 2008, it was looking for a fresh, more effective, meaningful and implementable policy.

What draft says and doesn’t say:

• The draft National Mineral Policy 2018, made public on January 10, calls for a long term export policy for the mineral sector.
• It aims to bring stability and incentivize investments in large-scale commercial mining.
• And proposes to offer mineral exploration companies the right of first refusal when mines explored by them are auctioned.
• But there is not much in line with global best practices such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), whistleblower protection, Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES), etc.
• The draft also does not spell out the strategy to protect Intergenerational Equity, a doctrine that the Economic Survey 2016-17 has acknowledged while referring to the apex court’s orders.

The miners’ objections:

• Mining companies have challenged the creation of the General Provident Fund (GPF).
• They argued that with the District Mineral Foundations (DMFs) aimed at intergenerational equity and livelihood support for families affected by mining already in place, the GPF amounted to a double levy.

The global benchmarks:

• Norway and 50 other countries/sub-nations have created permanent funds based on extracting economic rent from oil and other natural resources.
• In North America, Alberta and Alaska set up Oil Funds in the mid-1970s.
• Alberta and Alaska used the bulk of revenues to cut or abolish taxes, and allocated only a fraction to their Funds.
• Chile set up its Copper Stabilisation Fund in 1985. During the 1997-98 financial crisis, it channelled $ 200 million from the Fund to the national economy.
• Botswana established the Pula Fund in 1994 to save part of the income from diamond exports for future generations.
• In 2008, Mongolia created a Human Development Fund, making every citizen eligible to own an equal share of the national mineral wealth.

Fundamentals of intergenerational equity:

• The fundamentals of intergenerational equity demand some nonnegotiable principles: zero-waste and zero-loss mining, judicious capping, conserving reserves, minimum environmental damage under the polluter-pays principle, free informed consent of the mining-affected, funds for future and, most importantly, transparency.