Draft Template For Star Rating Of Minor Minerals
A system of star rating has been proposed for the leasing out of land for minor minerals. After testing the effectiveness of star rating in major minerals, the system is being applied to minor minerals with a template already being drafted.
Minor Minerals
According to the Mines and Minerals ( Development and Regulation ) Act, 1957, Minor minerals refer to building stones, gravel, ordinary clay, ordinary sand other than sand used for prescribed purposes, and any other mineral which the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare to be a minor mineral.
Why Star Rating at all?
In a developing country like India, minerals are extensively used for multifarious purposes and to extract those minerals, the activity followed is mining which comes with a lot of problems.
Mining affects the environment in a many harmful ways.
Firstly, it causes degradation of land on which it is done including removal of vegetation and wildlife from the area. Along with that even when the mining ceases, there is little evidence that pre-mining surface features are replaced.
Secondly, pollution due to the activity in water takes the form of acid mine drainage, metal contamination and increased sediment levels in streams which pollutes the groundwater, surface water and the surrounding soil.
Further, it creates the problem of displacement and satisfactory rehabilitation of the people in the surrounding areas. Mining if done in an non-regulatory manner could lead to either ineffective utilization of land or overexploitation of it.
The star rating if used could determine the environmental and social viability of the project to be done and therefore could prevent future losses.
Star Rating System
What is it?
It is a system where points are awarded to each lease on fulfilling certain criteria set up in the draft template. It is formulated under the objective of ‘Sustainable Development Framework’.
100 is the maximum number of points that can be scored by a mining lease area. The points are divided under six categories. The categories and their respective points are as follows:
- Systematic and sustainable mining: 28 pts
- Protection of environment: 15 pts
- Conservation of water and use of renewable energy sources: 10 pts
- Health and safety of workers: 20 pts
- Welfare measures and community engagement: 13 pts
- Statutory compliance: 14 pts
The above six categories contain multiple parameters within themselves which have to be met for achieving a perfect score.
How does it work?
For example if we take the category of ‘statutory compliance’. It contains three parameters on which the lease area will be judged. Firstly, it sees if the lease area has all the no objection certificates (NOCs) from all the government departments for which 5 pts are allotted if the criteria is fulfilled. Secondly, it investigates if there were any violations pointed out by any government agency and whether they have been satisfactorily resolved, after which they are awarded 5 pts more. Lastly, they focus whether competent people are hired to carry out the job which includes foreman, manager, mining mate, blaster upon completion of which they are given 4 pts which makes it a total of 14 pts area.
Evaluation
It was decided that, according to the template of the lease, a lease would get 5 stars if it scored more than 75 pts, 4 stars if it scored between 60-75 and 3 stars if it scored between 50-60 pts. Out of 16 mineral rich states, 11 agreed to adopt the star rating system.
Impact
- It would help in mitigating air, water and soil pollution that occur due to mining practices.
- It would help the strategies and technology used for minimizing environmental impacts due to mining come into public domain ensuring increased transparency. It would help the stakeholders to participate more easily leading to faster resolution of conflicts.
- The data regarding various technical, environmental and social initiatives and impacts would be better managed and monitored when present on one platform i.e, IBM.
- Having a collation of data from various aspects of mining would help in building robust plans for regional environment and social management.
- Time will be saved as clearances (environment, forest and mining plans etc.) from various departments of government would be easily acquired based on the rating
- The lessee can be supervised to see if he leaves the area after mining in a sustainable condition which would ensure final and progressive closures to mines.
At the end it hopes to ensure that better mitigating, management and sustainable practices are used and shared.
