The Goa cabinet has approved a policy to allow the sale of mining dumps, materials that were once considered as waste, bringing huge relief for leaseholders in the natural resource rich southern state of India.
Chief minister Pramod Sawant said the policy was approved at a recent meeting of the state cabinet, but it is yet to be notified.
“With this, the policy to begin mining from dumps can begin. The state will also earn some revenue,” Sawant said.
According to the policy, only erstwhile leaseholders who have claims to inventoried dumps situated on private properties falling outside the lease area, and depicted on the mining plan will be allowed to remove the dump, only if they have paid conversion fees in terms of the policy for regulating the dumps on government and private lands; if they can do so only after receiving prior permission and within a period of five years.
All other categories of dumps, those which were depicted on mining plans but whose conversion fees have not been paid, dumps on government land, dumps not indicated in the approved mining plan, have been either declared illegal or belonging to the government and will be auctioned, according to the policy.
The Goa government had in 2013, through an amendment in the Land Revenue Code, allowed those who had illegally dumped rejects outside the leases to ‘regularise’ their dumps by paying a penalty referred to as conversion fees. A total of ₹200 crore was collected back then.
{{/usCountry}}The Goa government had in 2013, through an amendment in the Land Revenue Code, allowed those who had illegally dumped rejects outside the leases to ‘regularise’ their dumps by paying a penalty referred to as conversion fees. A total of ₹200 crore was collected back then.
{{/usCountry}}The issue of whether dumps can be handled was pending before the Supreme Court, which had prohibited handling the dump materials until the top court decides the issue.
However, in December 2022, the SC permitted the Goa government to handle iron ore dumps after it allowed an application filed by the state government to modify its earlier orders that banned extracting valuable ore from dumps.
Goa has several mining dumps scattered around the countryside, made of topsoil and other low-grade mud, that were rejected by miners who were only interested in the higher-grade ore found deeper underneath the opencast pits. Tonnes of this material were dumped often outside the notified lease on government, community and private lands without any permissions.
With the price of iron ore rising substantially since then, and even lower grade ore now being of value, the industry has been demanding that they be allowed to dig through the old dumps and export what they can.
It has been estimated that a total quantity of these dumps is around 700 million tonnes, but the exact location of dumps with respect to lease area, the Fe content, revegetation status, etc., are not known.