September 08, 2008

Mr Patnaik trashes National Mineral Policy

Mr Naveen Patnaik chief minister of Orissa said that "The National Mineral Policy 2008 is not only shortsighted and formulated with an eye on elections, but it smacks of a surreptitious deal with hidden or foreign hands or even with the international mining lobby. It is detrimental to all mineral bearing states."

Mr Patnaik said that chief ministers of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa had jointly opposed the proposed policy and had met the Prime Minister the home minister and the mines minister in this connection.

He added that "We had demanded that the draft mineral policy be shared with us before it is approved by the cabinet but instead of doing so the central government has just gone ahead and approved it. The surreptitious manner in which the entire matter has been handled by the central government raises doubts about its intentions, especially the policy being tabled in the Rajya Sabha in the last hours before the recent recess of Parliament."

Mr Patnaik said that the policy is heavily influenced by the international mining lobby. He dismissed the contention that the mining sector needs state of the art technology and that it is a standalone activity where security of tenure and seamless transition from prospecting to export is required. He said such an approach was fundamentally flawed as far as bulk minerals like iron ore, bauxite, chromite and limestone were concerned. He added that "If the policy is adopted, a few multinational mining companies will acquire control over vast mineral resources of the country and exports of finite resources will be encouraged."

Objecting to the provision of a seamless transition from prospecting to mining and export, as also to the security of tenure argument, Mr Patnaik said that once an applicant gets a prospecting license she will automatically get a mining license leaving no scope for the state government to impose any conditions relating to value addition within the state.

He added that "Mineral bearing states can prosper by insisting on value addition to ore within the state and Orissa is a bright example of how it has attracted investment by adopting such a policy fetches revenue and provides employment."