Mining ordinance 'undemocratic', says BJD

Says new law does not include recommendations sent by the Odisha government

Odisha’s views on amendment to the Mines and Minerals Development & Regulation (MMDR) Bill have been ignored in the Mining Ordinance issued by the Centre, said state steel & mines minister Prafulla Mallick.

“The Centre did not discuss with us properly before coming out with such an Ordinance. We will send our objections to the Centre after studying it,” Mallick said.

The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has raised objections to the Ordinance stating the new law did not include recommendations sent by the state government.

“We had suggested that the Revision Authority under Ministry of Mines should be abolished because the pendency of mining related cases is huge. Besides, there should be greater say of mineral bearing states in allotment and auction of leases, which was not included. This is undemocratic,” said Amar Prasad Satapathy, spokesperson of BJD.

The state government had sent several recommendations to the draft MMDR Amendment Bill including providing power to the state government to levy cess on mining to support investment in curbing pollution due to excavation activities. It also said the new law should not encroach upon the power vested upon the states. None of its recommendations have been included in the ordinance, the ruling party said.

“Prime Minister Modi says all chief ministers will be members in the NITI Aayog which is true spirit of federal democracy, but the way the ordinance was issued unilaterally ignoring demands of Odisha shows he has little respect for the states,” added Satapathy.

The Ordinance does away with renewal of mining leases and has provisions for lease period of 50 years instead of 30 years in the earlier law. After completion of the lease period, the lease will be put up for auction again. In the previous law, the state governments had powers to recommend or reject renewal applications of miners.

The government said it will record its protest before the Union government after studying the Ordinance.

The Ordinance came into effect on Monday, after the assent of the President. It has not reached the states so far.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the Odisha government is trying to act smart by announcing auctioning of mining leases on the day the Ordinance was announced by the Government of India.

“The Naveen Patnaik government has been in power for the last 14 years but it decided to auction leases on the same day when Union cabinet approved the ordinance. What took it so long to come up with the decision to auction the leases?,” said Dharmendra Pradhan, Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas.