While the mines ministry has managed to get green signal from the group of ministers (GoM) on the proposal that mining firms would share 26% of their profit with the affected people, the discretion to decide who is affected and the list of affected people has been left to the state governments.
A government official told FE that the Centre would not be deciding the definition of the affected people. He said, ?State government will make a list of affected people and send it to the ministry?.
While refraining from giving a definition of who is affected, the official said, ?The criteria could include anyone displaced, in case of loss of livelihood, due to noise/air pollution, being poisoned due to the chemicals, no access to the forest, etc.? Experts, however, fear that giving the powers in the hands of states can bring more irregularities in the process of deciding the beneficiaries of the scheme.
In its last meeting, the group of ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee approved the new mining Bill that proposes 26% profit-sharing by miners with the people affected by the project.
Besides Mukherjee, the 10-member GoM consists of home minister P Chidambaram, steel minister Virbhadra Singh, law minister V Moily, mines minister B K Handique, commerce minister Anand Sharma, tribal affairs minister K Bhuria, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, environment minister Jairam Ramesh and coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal.
The new Bill has proposed creation of a fund, district mineral foundation, to pay the beneficiaries. Besides, it proposes that in case of a mine being non-functional or in losses, the firms should compensate the people affected by land acquisition, by paying them amount equal to the royalty given to state governments.
However, the industry opposed the profit sharing proposal and had said that if enacted it would choke investments. The draft has gone to the law ministry for its views and soon will go for the Cabinet approval.