Dumps are a part of our shared inheritance of mineral resources, owned by the state as trustee for the people and especially future generations. However, dumps are a significant source of silt in our fields, nallahs and rivers. They also occupy valuable land, which in some cases are private (is the state trespassing?). Some are wrongly located on forest land. Clearly, if some part of the dumps can be sold, it would be superior to fresh mining, as it would reduce an environmental problem instead of creating one.
The Chief Minister recently stated that auctions of dumps will begin in Goa. In December last year, after an application by the state government, the Supreme Court (SC) allowed the State Government to carry out the dump mining activities in accordance with the Expert Committee’s Report and specifically paragraph 6 that is containing the recommendation of the Expert Committee. What needs to happen for dump mining to restart? What about the other dumps?
Kinds of dumps
According to the SC appointed Expert Committee (EC), dumps can be categorized as follows:
- Prior to mining, there’s the top-soil, and then the overburden, which may contain associated minerals including calcium bentonite, manganiferrous clay, dolomite, red oxide and gold.
- Next is the ore, which may be marketable, non-marketable but above the IBM threshold, and there’s sub-grade ore that may become marketable in future. Marketable ore dumps are called stacks.
- Non-marketable and sub-grade ore may be processed and beneficiated so that a part becomes marketable ore, and the remaining are mining wastes like rejects and tailings.
Legally, each of these are supposed to be maintained separately. In practice, only stacks and ore for future processing are kept separate. However, for the balance categories, the Expert Committee (EC) notes “that only one category of dump i.e. overburden consisting of mineral rejects, (sub—grade ore), mine wastes, clay, and other associated minerals are predominantly existing across Goan Iron Ore Mining landscapes.”
Who owns the dumps?
Sub-soil minerals are owned by the state. Under the Transfer of Property Act, the miner gains ownership of the extracted ore when (a) they have a valid lease, (b) they “win the ore”, and (c) they pay the sale consideration (royalty, GIOPF and auction premia). If any material leaves the mine gate without any of these conditions being met, it is essentially theft of state property. Therefore, outside the lease area, we should only find stacks of marketable ore in stockyards or at jetty-heads, and mining waste from processing & beneficiation. Other dumps outside the lease area are illegal. However, Goan miners have created very large overburden dumps outside lease areas, without paying royalty.
A variety of SC and High Court judgments have made clear that all dumps (other than stacks of marketable royalty-paid ore) are owned by the State Government. This is true whether they are inside or outside the lease.
Legal requirements for dump mining
As technology has improved, the IBM threshold for saleable ore has dropped over the decades. What was sub-grade or low-grade ore decades earlier could be saleable today. Prior to the 2011 dump mining ban (still in effect) some 39.6 million tons of ore were exported.
Similarly, it may be possible to conduct further dump mining for iron ore. At one point, it was estimated that 20% of the dumps could be sold. Extracting associated minerals from overburden dumps may also be economically feasible.
The Ministry of Mines, GoI has made amply clear that dump mining would require a mineral lease, a mining plan as well as environment clearances[1]. Dealing with afforested dumps or dumps in forest lands will require forest clearances as well. Dump mining would be part of the overall cap set by the SC.
How much is there?
In 2013, the Supreme Court directed the Monitoring Committee to inventory all the mineral ore stacks in mines / stockyards / jetties / ports, and e-auction them. A total of 16.587500 million tons of iron ore was inventorized by the Monitoring Committee. Around 1 million tons remains to be e-auctioned. Periodically, former leaseholders claim uninventoried stacks exist – the DMG never prosecutes for non-disclosure in such cases. Legally, these need to be treated as dumps, not stacks subject to e-auction.
There are approximately 730 million tons of dumps across Goa, based on self-disclosure by the former leaseholders. More dumps are reported regularly. The dumps within leases are part of the current auctions of mineral blocks. Dumps outside leases are on government, forest or even private lands. It is not entirely clear how much is outside the lease on private or forest lands. Nor it is clear how much of this is marketable ore as no tests have taken place. And who protects this public wealth from theft?
However, the DMG has gone ahead and auctioned off 0.98 million tons of dumps as though they were inventoried stacks, bypassing statutory requirements. At present, this has been stayed by the High Court.
Goa Mineral Policy (GMP) 2013 on dumps
The GMP deals extensively with dumps. Section 6 deals with managing dumps & the problems they create. Noteworthy are paras 6.2.1 (requiring a geo-spatial inventory of all dumps & stockyards along with underlying land zoning, use authorization and leasing arrangements) and 6.3.6 (requiring special MoEFCC approval for handling dumps in forest areas).
Section 7 of the GMP suggests that dump mining should be prioritized over fresh mining (“7.2. Available infrastructure will be put to better public good by diverting its usage in the movement and export of dumps rather than freshly excavated iron ore”). Section 8 suggests that dump mining would form part of the overall mining cap. Section 9 suggests dump mining would help “9.3. To recover 1,000 acres of land for productive use from dump storage.”
The Expert Committee built on the provisions regarding dumps in the GMP 2013.
Expert Committee recommendations on dumps
Granting the plea of the state government, the SC has ordered the implementation of the EC’s recommendations, in particular those in para 6 of their report. The 13 recommendations of the EC on dumps have been re-ordered below in order to put them in sequential steps for implementation. Note the EC specifically excluded the inventoried stacks of marketable ore from its analysis.
Preparatory steps
- Set up a Center for Ecological Restoration and Mineral Development (CERMD) (R.8)
- Impose a cess or use CAMPA funds to finance the CERMD (R.8)
- Amend Goa Mineral Policy 2013 as required (R.13), including
- Adopting the EC classification of dumps for management (R.12)
- Dumps in non-lease areas require an appropriate policy with additional environmental safeguards (R.3, R.4).
- Inventory of dumps as per GMP 6.1.2, categorized as per EC report (R.12).
- Assessment of extent of saleable Fe ore and potential saleable Fe ore (after beneficiation), and other associated minerals (e.g. industrial minerals) as per the relevant policy/law/rules/regulations (R.9).
- Assessment whether unstable or on hill slope, forest or ecologically sensitive area outside lease (R.1).
- Inform mineral block auction winners & bidders for new blocks that stabilized dumps within lease areas covered with vegetation are to be handled only after existing ore is exhausted (R.2)
- Prioritize handling of unstable dumps contributing to pollution, and those on hill slopes, forest areas and other ecologically sensitive non-lease areas (R.1)
- For dumps in forest areas, specific MoEFCC approval is required as per GMP 6.3.6 (R.6)
Implementation steps
- Apply for necessary environment & forest clearances for dump mining (R.11)
- Implement conditions for handling dumps in non-lease areas which contain sub-grade ores that minimize environmental impacts (R.3, R.4)
- If required, set up ore beneficiation / pelletisation plants for re-handling of dumps (R.7)
- Tailing dumps should be grassed or covered with mulch until disposal (R.5)
- Amend mine closure plan if a mine quarry is to be used for storage of water & recharge of ground water, pisiculture development, source of water for irrigation. (R.10)
State is sitting on its hands
The recent budget, despite expecting Rs. 1,000 crores from mining, has no provision for the CERMD, nor has any cess been proposed to finance it. The GMP 2013 is yet to be amended, and the current policy for dumps outside lease areas has been stayed. Importantly, the geo-spatial inventory of dumps along with assessment of the contents as well as their environmental attributes is yet to be started. It is hard to see how the preparatory steps can be completed in less than a couple of years. Clearly the DMG has been twiddling their thumbs for the last 5 years – mining was stopped on 15-Mar-2018! In fact, this should have begun a decade earlier with the GMP 2013.
Potential role for Goa Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC)?
Managing the dumps, especially those outside mineral leases, need to be dealt with on priority. However, in many cases, the dumps would be relatively small. The state has two options for dump mining: form mineral blocks and auction them, or utilize the GMDC to manage dump mining. It would seem more effective if the CERMD and GMDC were jointly utilized to resolve the issues of dumps, especially those on forest and private lands, with the joint goals of being environmentally net-positive and maximizing the value of dumps by dump mining for iron ore and associated minerals.
Conclusion
As the GMP 2013 indicates, clearing the dumps should be the state’s highest priority for the cap allocation. One aspect of cleaning up after the mining illegalities should be to deal with the dumps before considering fresh mining. The state, despite pleading for the EC’s recommendations on dumps be approved, has done little so far to implement these six months later. Until this happens, the goal of “revenue” from dump auctions seems unlikely to fructify. And the festering wounds created by the mining industry will only worsen. Things will only change when we the people force the politicians to work for the people.
[1] Ministry of Mines letter dated 2-Jul-2012 & 7-Sep-2012 to Government of Goa