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Business Line | Nov 03, 2019

While the Central government is struggling to make its ends meet with falling revenues and rising expenses, the mineral rich states are fighting a problem of plenty.

The 21 mineral rich states in country has managed to spend only 30 per cent of the money collected under District Mineral Fund (DMF) ever since the states started collecting a portion of the value of mineral mined as royalty in last five years. As of August, these states together had accumulated Rs 31,831 crore in DMF but spent only Rs 9,555 crore in districts around the mining area, as per government data.

Mining lease

As per the Mines and Minerals Development & Regulation Act, 2015, companies that have acquired mining lease through the auction route have to pay 10 per cent of the value of mineral as royalty to the state government which in turn will set up a DMF. Older mines that are allocated by the government outside the purview of auction chip in 30 per cent to DMF. The leases of these mines will expire and auctioned next March.

The mineral producing states have collected Rs 13,584 crore as DMF from sale of coal and lignite while contribution from other major minerals and minor minerals were Rs 15,241 crore and Rs 3,006 crore, respectively. Of the 583 districts that were suppose to set up DMF, only 557 have formed the fund.

Of the 133,214 projects identified, 23,804 projects are yet to start while 6,538 projects have been cancelled. In all 45,523 have been completed and 57,349 projects are ongoing. With Rs 8,253 crore, Odisha has the highest DMF corpus. Out of 12,664 projects sanctioned, only 5,438 projects have been competed, 4,130 are on-going, and 3,096 are yet to start. However, Odisha has not scrapped a single project.

DMF corpus

Similarly, Jharkhand, the second highest contributor in DMF, with about Rs 4,585 crore, has 16,519 projects sanctioned but not a single project has been completed. With a contribution of Rs 4,435 crore, Chhattisgarh was the third largest state in DMF mop up. It has the highest number of sanctioned projects at 31,657 and has completed 20,025 projects and scrapped 1,448 projects.

Others such as Rajasthan, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh also rank among states with top DMF corpus. RK Sharma, Secretary General, Federation of Indian Mineral Industry said while the numbers speak for the themselves, the progress of projects has been pathetically slow and communities believe that mining companies are not doing enough.

Government should form a body of Indian mining companies and state governments to make a concrete action plan and spend DMF funds gainfully, said Sharma who heads the apex body of miners.

News Central | Rosamma Thomas | Sep 19, 2019
Rs 2248 crore accumulated DMF funds in Rajasthan, but utilisation mostly for roads, construction.

The District Mineral Foundation Trusts were formed with the aim of putting in place funds and processes that would aid those affected by mining and help in restoration of lands laid waste by mines. The Rajasthan government notified the rules of these trusts in 2016 and set up district foundations in each of its 33 districts. The website of the state DMF shows that Rs 2248.31 crore has been collected by the DMFs in the state; this is drawn from the royalty that the mines pay to the government.

However, a perusal of the utilisation of these funds in the different districts shows that the bulk of the money is being used for construction – for building healthcare facilities or laying roads. In Bhilwara district, for instance, where a large number of workers are affected by silicosis, the incurable lung disease that afflicts mine workers after silica dust lodges in their lungs, 34 per cent of the funds were used for developing physical infrastructure and 25 per cent for provision of drinking water.

The Comptroller and Auditor General had earlier pointed to how the collections meant for the DMF were not being used judiciously and underlined the need to create a separate account sub-head for DMFT contributions. As of March 2018, CAG found an accumulated Rs 498 crore lying idle in a non-interest bearing personal deposit of the Department of Mining and Geology, leaving district trusts deprived, Down To Earth magazine reported.

Rana Sengupta of the Mine Labourers Protection Campaign, Jodhpur, says, “Physical infrastructure and drinking water provision should be made from the general budget, ideally. The DMF funds should be dedicated to the welfare of those suffering because of mining operations and for restoration of the land.”

At a recent meeting in the state capital, Dr Kamlesh Sarkar of the National Institute of Occupational Health, Ahmedabad, explained that he had found a scientific way in which silicosis could be detected early, by tracking the club cell protein in serum. In a healthy adult, the reading is 16.7 nanogram per millilitre, and as the disease progresses this count drops. The doctor explained that if the disease is caught early, deterioration of the lungs can be prevented by ensuring that the patient is no longer exposed to the dust. Dr Sarkar needed Rs 1.23 crore to confirm his findings through a five-year study, but had not been able to manage the funds.

In July this year, the Centre approved the merger of the National Institute of Miners Health, Nagpur, with the National Institute of Occupational Health, Ahmedabad. Activist Rana Sengupta says, “There is a more urgent need now for a special institute dedicated to the study of silicosis. The government of Rajasthan has put in place measures for compensating patients diagnosed with the condition, but we need now to ensure proper prevention. And for that, it would be ideal if a centre for silicosis were set up by the state government. It could come up either within the Desert Medicine Research Centre or All India Institute of Medical Sciences, both of which are in Jodhpur. Such a centre would also create knowledge that would be useful for patients suffering from the disease in other states.”

At a recent meeting with CM Ashok Gehlot, activists urged the chief minister to set up a research centre dedicated to silicosis at the state level even if support was not forthcoming from the Centre.