The Orissa government plans to create a special corpus for the development of the mining areas in the state.
Since the local population in the mining areas is not benefited much from the mining activity, the new initiative seeks to address the issue.
The corpus will be named as ‘Special Development Fund’ and Rs 100 crore would be pumped into it during the current fiscal.
“The government has agreed to provide 5 percent of the royalty on major minerals to the special fund for development of the mining areas. A committee has been constituted to suggest programmes for the places directly impacted by mining”, Ashok Dalwai, secretary, steel and mines, Orissa government said.
Addressing a workshop on issues relating to illegal mining, smuggling and trading of ores and minerals organised by the Mining Engineers Association of India (MEAI) and Society of Geo-scientists and Allied Technologists (SGAT), Dalwai said, the government is making efforts to ameliorate the impacts of the mining.
Stating that a number of schemes might be in operation in those areas, he said, a service delivery mechanism is proposed to be put in place to improve the efficacy of the schemes.
Since the local people don’t have claims on the revenue generated from mining, they remain passive in resisting illegal mining activities in the non-lease areas. To reverse the trend, the government plans to introduce ‘Joint Mineral Management’ scheme in line with the Joint Forest Management (JFM).
Under it, the local community would have a stake and they would be incentivised to protect these areas.
Stating that illegal mining is not confined to Orissa or India alone, he said, World Bank is in talks with about 30 countries of the world on extracting industries transparency issues.
The World Bank would take up a diagnostic study in Orissa on various legal, procedural, organisational aspects of reforms in the mining sector.
One round of discussion has already been held with the World Bank team and the study would take about 4-5 months for completion. The bank is expected to submit its report by December 2010, after which various reform measures would be taken up.
On the issue of illegal mining, he said, there is lack of co-ordination between the state and Central agencies.
Though 50 percent ore of the state is transported through the railway network, they don’t have a regulatory system. Ensuring joint responsibility between the Centre and the state can help in checking the illegal mining, he pointed out.
V D Rajagopal, president, MEAI, Dr. R C Mohanty (president, SGAT), B K Mohanty (advisor, SGAT) and Dr S K Sarangi (vice-president, MEAI) spoke on the occasion.
