Mining Woes my a$$

"And this is where one comes to the point that perhaps the Timblos and Dempos and Salgaoncars and all the rich and powerful who support mining, actually think that Goans are stupid" writes Hartman de Souza

One genuinely worries sometimes that the mining industry in Goa actually thinks that Goans are stupid, and still blessed perhaps with the feudal qualities that once enabled their manipulation if not downright exploitation.

Shivanand Salgaocar, president of the Mineral Ore Foundation (MOF), and joint managing director of VM Salgaocar and Brothers Pvt Ltd, was recently moaning the fact that Goa’s Rs.60-billion (Rs.6,000-crore) low-grade iron ore exports were expected to fall 50 percent this fiscal. While exports this year have shown a marginal drop in terms of volumes he told a reporter from IANS, the actual revenue earned has shrunk considerably.

“The prices for low-grade iron ore plummeted during the second half of 2008,” he continued to IANS on February 23rd, “right now, we are seeing a steady renewal of demand for low-grade iron ore, but at virtually half the original rates.”

On the 24th, to The Hindu’s business paper, he sang a different song. He said Goa’s iron ore export industry, badly hit due to global recession between September and December was on a comeback trail. “When recession hit us,’ he told the paper, “the scene was bad. But in the last two months or so, the situation has improved and there could be a marginal drop in terms of volume. It is the decline in international prices of the long-term contracts that is worrying us,” said Mr Salgaoncar.

Just how much Mr Salgaoncar worries and about what, is a moot point. For instance he is nothing but optimistic about continuing to do to the Western Ghats, what his own and his friend’s companies have done with such terrible distinction, and with such rabid fervour from the late 80s, with total disregard for the environment and norms governing it.

Given that one is a cash-rich mining baron, given that the panel within the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) that grants mining leases is populated by representatives of the mining industry, they have got away with murder. One still does not know for instance whether the Goan government, as enjoined by the High Court has completed the mapping of forest areas, before the mining industry’s lab in Hyderabad prepares a few more ‘templated’ reports to allow our forests to disappear.

While Mr Salgaoncar moans the fact that Japan and South Korea, the industry’s favourite sons are wrecked by recession, he nonetheless sees the importance of China, ‘spot’ market that he rues it is. Not for him any undue worry that Goa’s ore is so low-grade it wouldn’t even be sniffed at by his Japanese and South Korean friends.

“Goa’s iron ore grade is 58 per cent and below”, he tells the same paper. “Thanks to the Chinese market, the ore of still lower grade has value and is exported. The threshold value as per Indian Bureau of Mines is 55 Fe, but for us, iron ore with value of 52 Fe is a viable opportunity,” observed Mr Salgaoncar.

‘Viable’ my a$$!

As Hindu’s business paper reports, “Riding on a last quarter pick-up of iron ore volumes by Chinese steel companies, Goan iron ore exporters are confident that they would end the current financial year marginally below last year’s ore exports.” Mr Salgaoncar even had the audacity to admit to the paper that 80 per cent of Goa’s ore is low-grade. The paper writes he explained the economics by saying that some of the Chinese steel mills used our low grade ore to ‘blend’ with high grade ore procured from Brazil!!

We need to understand the nature of the mining industry’s angst. While Mr Salgaoncar is upset over the over the low contract prices in the international market, what he means is that instead of selling Goan earth (and its forests and aquifers) at 80 rupees a kilo, he’s now selling it at 55 rupees. To understand the bucks here, Goa’s mining exports touched 40 million tonnes last year, including 33 million tonnes of Goan origin ore, and the rest probably from Maharashtra where the Dempos, even as this is being written, encroach on the magnificent Ghat off Sawantwadi and before Ambolim.

In the current year, Mr Salgaoncar told the paper, his buddies and him could end the current year with the figures of 38 million tonnes and 30 million tonnes, respectively. This current recession is a crisis that must be borne out by brave men like Mr Salgaoncar until the ship is steadied by cronies and functionaries who refuse to see the writing on the wall and who refuse to re-synchronize their gearboxes and differentials.

And this is where one comes to the point that perhaps the Timblos and Dempos and Salgaoncars and all the rich and powerful who support mining, actually think that Goans are stupid.

To the same business paper, replying to a specific question, Mr Salgaoncar was anything but worrying. He told the paper that even considering the lower threshold ore available in Goa, the mining could go on for AT LEAST ANOTHER TWENTY YEARS.

So where does he think the mining will reach by that time? A kilometre or two away from his official mansion?

Sadly, if there was any honesty at all in the interviews Shivanand Salgaocar gave to the press, even the faintest glimmer of some integrity, it was his refusal to comment on the issue of illegal mining, which anti-mining activists allege is rampant in Goa’s mining belt.