Perhaps unsurprisingly, pro-mining and anti-mining groups in Goa had radically different views of the EIA process. While both groups were extremely critical of the way the EIA process was set up, they based their criticism on very different
assumptions and justified their views with very different arguments. We thus see two very different discourses on mining at play in the debate on EIAs.
Mining proponents saw industrialisation as leading to economic development and minerals as crucial export revenues. Their pro-mining discourse relied on arguments rooted in an economic logic that highlighted economic growth and market liberalism.
Whilst mining proponents articulated slightly different claims, they all argued that it was the EIA process itself that damaged the mining industry and created governance problems. In this pro-mining discourse, mine owners were constructed as good-willing entrepreneurs who had the ‘right to mine’ and were operating in response to the market demand. This right to mine was rooted in the history of mining dating back to the Portuguese when mining concessions were transferred, as mining leases, to Indian hands. In the pro-mining discourse, the EIA process was portrayed as undermining the competitiveness of the industry, and holding back the entrepreneurial spirit of mine owners.
Vipal owned a well-known family mining business in the south of Goa that had been shut down since the suspension. He challenged the evidence that underlaid this decision and saw the EIA process as a set of regulations and paperwork that was too complex. It was so complicated that it was only manageable for the big miners with “access to the government” and that this blocked small miners from operating legally. By
differentiating between big and small mine owners, Vipal constructed small mine owners as the main victims of the EIA process. He said that the suspension had poorly treated mine owners by bringing ‘shame’ on them; business men who were just trying to make a living and do good things for society. By invoking moral claims, the pro-mining discourse portrayed governance as damaging a ‘good’ industry.
Hari was another mine owner of a family mining business who unlike Vipal, had been given permission to resume operations after the suspension. His argument against the EIA process was that regulations in fact prevented ‘sustainable mining’. The Mines and
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Minerals Act (MMDR) of 1957 separates major and minor minerals and Hari wanted to mine both. He was waiting for regulatory approval from different central and state departments for the mining plan and the permits. This institutional and regulatory pluralism, he argued, was hampering the potential of the industry to be ‘sustainable’. He said that iron ore mining could be ‘sustainable’ if more minerals were mined because mineral dumping would be reduced. Less mineral dumping would mean less
environmental damage to fields and more profit from extracted land mass, as they can export a wider range of minerals. If this MMDR regulation was updated based on a modern scientific table of elements and if EC permissions were centralised, he argued, mining in Goa could be modernised and made more sustainable. Hari’s understanding of sustainability here is purely economic, referring to steady growth in profit, efficiency and managing the impacts of business on local agriculture. This pro-mining argument drew on mineral science and ideas about sustainability to represent the current EIA process as unscientific and unsustainable.
Garud who worked for a mining association articulated the hardest anti-regulation stance. He used the logic of supply and demand to explain the need for iron ore mining in Goa and thus to condemn the mining ban. Remaining a competitive industry was his biggest concern and he saw the central government, not the state government, as making the industry “totally insecure”. With reference to the 2006 EIA amendment he said “the government was trying to keep up with new laws probably because of international protocols. EIAs used to be a section of the mining plan and that worked fine”. He went on to state that illegal mining was impossible given the number of regulations in place and that yet, those following the rules should not be ‘punished’ for those who do not.
The subsequent cap on production and the redistribution quote, he said, was producing problems within the industry and for society. This was confirmed by an interviewee from the GSPCB who said the cap and redistribution meant that the bigger companies did get more of the production quota. Garud also rejected the Shah Commission
findings which included numerous encroachments and found a loss of Rs. 35,000 crores due to mining outside mining lease areas (Shah Commission Report 2012). He
described these findings as unscientific, “we estimated different numbers. I am not saying they are wrong but even they admit that they did not do scientific studies on this.
They only used Google Earth and even the Ministry has said this is not credible”.
Together, these examples show how the pro-mining discourse – in spite of its internal
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variation – drew on arguments rooted in economics and science, mixed with moralising claims, to represent regulation rather than mining as the main problem.
Whilst mining proponents saw the industry as complying with the law, environmental activists attempted to undermine this representation. They argued that mining
companies willfully ignored environmental regulations and that the rules themselves were not seriously implemented. For Tahj – an expert from the EIA Resource and Response Centre (eRc) – the EIA Act of 2006 in fact “diluted” the EIA procedure “for ease of business”, as he put it. Similarly, Nisha, an environmental lawyer at the Goa Foundation, stated that government authorities such as the GSPCB approve their parts of the EIA process without checking the studies done by other departments. This leads to a systematic lack of oversight between government authorities and therefore the inadequate policing of EIAs. She said government authorities further shirk
responsibility by deliberately overlooking issues like water depletion when their main remit is water pollution. Interviewees said activists often got no answer to filed requests to information (RtI’s). Nisha claimed this was because the High Court did not want to be seen as stopping mining, the ‘economic backbone’ of Goa. Activists argued that the increase in regulations has simply led to companies finding different ways to seek permissions. For example, they saw amendments to the Goa Ground Water Act as encouraging companies to commission hydrological reports alongside their EIAs in order to prove no impact on groundwater. This means activists criticised both the design and implementation of regulations. Companies also benefit from a lack of government oversight by applying for permissions for separate parts of their mining project. For example, mine owners apply for separate permissions for a jetty, mining site and transport route, in so called ‘chunks’. By chunking the applications for permissions, critics said that mine owners reduce the likelihood of their project being rejected
because the chunked permissions they seek are for smaller development projects. These may or may not need an EIA and will be likely considered in different departments so the cumulative impact of a project will not be realised in decision making and the government will not demand more substantial mitigation methods. This shows, from the point of view of activists, how the pro-mining discourse is facilitated through the EIA process.
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