Friends and all 19,380 supporters,

The final National Mineral Policy 2019 is public. The bad news is that there's been further erosions in protections, and the only success of this petition is a mention of "minerals as a shared inheritance with the state as trustee" in the opening section on vision. A comparison of the final policy with the draft policy is below.

The good news is that the earlier language has been retained and not diluted further. Overall, our wins are something to celebrate. They give us a clear opening for advocacy. Some of the positives in the final policy:

1. "Minerals as a shared inheritance with the state as trustee" is now also in the vision.
2. Rights of future generations is included: "the state is the trustee on behalf of the people to ensure that future generations receive the benefit of inheritance"
3. Recognition of no-go areas (Precautionary principle), but with a caveat: "The Government shall identify such areas that are critically fragile in terms of ecology and declare as ‘in-violate areas’ or ‘no-go areas’ out of bounds for mining. In order to achieve a better semblance between mineral based development and environment, there shall be an endeavour to create Exclusive Mining Zone (EMZ) with prior in-principle statutory clearances demarcated for the mineralized belt/zone to avoid conflict of interest and to curtail delay in commencement of mining operation."
4. Creation of a mechanism for extraction caps: "This proposed mechanism shall also decide the limits on the extent of mining activities that should be permitted which would, inter alia, involve undertaking a detailed study for assessing what should be the state-wise/region-wise ceiling of annual excavation of minerals, considering the availability of mineral resources, the carrying capacity of the region, and the macro environmental impact on the region while also keeping in mind the principles of sustainable development and intergenerational equity and all other relevant factors."
5. #ZeroLoss makes an indirect entry: "State Governments will endeavour to ensure that the full value of the extracted minerals is received by the State."
6. End-to-end Control system: "Provisions shall be made for end-to-end accounting of mineral/ore in the supply chain with use of IT enabled systems." Satellites are also mentioned (and are in use).

Some things missing, problems:
1. FPIC (Free Prior Informed Consent) is missing
2. Samata judgment (26% of profits for tribals) is missing
3. Treating mining as a sale, and therefore the proceeds are capital, not "revenue". "Revenue" appears wrongly twice.
4. What should be done with the proceeds of mining - saved for future generations? Spent? Invested?
5. Radical transparency - everyone should be able to verify that she has done her duty by her future generations.
6. Global best practices (other than Doing Business)

Here's links to
1. The final National Mineral Policy 2019. https://mines.gov.in/writereaddata/UploadFile/NMP12032019.pdf
2. A comparison of the final policy with the draft policy. http://goenchimati.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Compare-Final-NMP-2019-over-draft-NMP-2018.docx
3. A comparison of the draft policy with the 2008 policy. http://goenchimati.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Compare-Draft-NMP-2018-over-NMP-2008.docx

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