New Delhi: The mining sector has grown at an average annual rate of 2.9 per cent during 2005-20, according to a white paper by Indicus Foundation.
The white paper titled ‘Re-Energizing Sustainable Mining in India’ identifies five key issues, including deficient private sector participation in exploration, lack of investor confidence due to insensitive judicial decision-making and lack of clarity on the ever-changing environment guidelines.
Weakness in state-level steps that precede auctions and bureaucratic freeze due to fear of vigilance or accusations were the other issues faced by the sector players. As per the paper, mining growth and exploration activity were spiralling down, approvals were stuck and increasingly even critical data were not being shared by the government.
“While this affects mining activity, it also prevents the entry and operations of mining units that are trying to build sustainable practices. The scope for those who don’t conform to the law therefore increases,” said a statement by Indicus Foundation.
“Mining is too important a sector to be left to status quo and poor decision-making to take over. It has a massive impact on the economy both in terms of employment and in terms of ensuring a low-cost sustainable economy,” added Laveesh Bhandari, Founder of Indicus Foundation.
It is for the government to ensure that such an ecosystem was created for it to grow and contribute to the maximum and environmental norms were maintained, he said.
The white paper says that the potential in the mining sector has been severely underutilised. It noted that be it fuel from coal or the value chain of minerals to metals and to materials, output from the mining sector forms a critical part of India’s growth story.
It focuses on the need for new investments in mining from a sustainability perspective.
Sustainability demands careful and cautious extraction over the long-term and incentives must move away from short-term over-extraction.
Globally, under regulatory and market pressure, mining companies have increasingly realised that commercial viability crucially rests on being environmentally and socially responsible, the statement said, adding that India needs to build an ecosystem that nurtures such interest in investment and the introduction of new technologies for sustainability.
