PTI reports that the Centre has asked Uttar Pradesh to amend its rules for minor minerals to make it transparent and non-discriminatory – auctions in other words. This follows from the Supreme Court judgement in the Presidential Reference on allocation of natural resources. When will Goa follow suit?
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Talk at BITS Pilani Goa on Sep 28
Rahul Basu from the Goenchi Mati Movement will be speaking about our Goenchi Mati Proposal at BITS Pilani Goa. If you would like to attend, please email solanodasilva@gmail.com with your name and phone number by tuesday evening so that the security can be informed.
Sand storms approaching
Sand is a mineral and often thought to be renewable. However, the world is actually running out of sand. Sand is also a huge corruption and governance problem across the planet and its turned deadly. And its worst in India. M. Rajshekhar recently wrote a devastating 3 part series (one, two and three) on sand mining in Tamil Nadu. For the first …
Talk at BITS Pilani Goa on Sep 28
Rahul Basu from the Goenchi Mati Movement will be speaking about our Goenchi Mati Proposal at BITS Pilani Goa. If you would like to attend, please email solanodasilva@gmail.com with your name and phone number by tuesday evening so that the security can be informed.
History of the Texas Permanent University Fund
The oldest known Permanent Fund is Texas’s Permanent University Fund. While it was set up in 1876, its origins go much further back to 1839. Interestingly, while its main asset was grazing land & the income from it financed the University of Texas. In 1923, oil was found on university land. Wisely, the oil receipts were treated as principal rather than as …
Why should all mineral receipts be saved in the Permanent Fund?
There are a few reasons we recommend that mineral receipts be saved only in a Permanent Fund as the new non-wasting asset. First, by insisting on all amounts being saved in the Permanent Fund, we are insulating the budget from the boom & bust commodity cycle. When prices are high, revenues expands, and politicians expand expenditure to match. When the prices crash, so …
Consultations on the District Mineral Foundations
Goa’s District Mineral Foundation Rules have been notified by the government. Unfortunately, the Goa DMFs do not comply with the mining laws, in particular the PMKKKY (Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana). Already over Rs. 30 crores have been collected. However, a recent legislative assembly question disclosed that no plans have been drawn up to utilize the funds, as required by the notified DMFs …
Water for future generations
The Paani Foundation, a spin-off from the Satyamev Jayate TV show, has done an outstanding pilot in three talukas in Maharashtra. Over 100 villages participated in the Paani Cup. This involved sending villagers for training in watershed management, and then actually building water harvesting structures in 45 days in peak summer, just before the monsoon. Future generations played a key part in …
Goa has a Permanent Fund, why doesn’t the UK?
Rahul Basu and Deepak Narayanan write at the Citizen’s Income Trust website about what the UK can learn from our Goenchi Mati Movement. The UK recovered around GBP 400 billion less that Norway from a similar amount of North Sea oil. A huge loss to the people, roughly GBP 6,000 a head. As UK starts fracking, instituting our principles of zero loss …
Areas reserved for Public Sector mining
The simplest way to achieve zero loss mining is to mine through the public sector. The Mines & Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act has a provisio permitting states to reserve areas (or even the entire state) for public sector mining. Here’s the official list from the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) of areas reserved in this manner. Gujarat, in 2009 under …