Kollam: The Kerala government's decision to extend the lease tenure of mines and permit of quarries shortly before the announcement of assembly polls reeks of malafide intent.
The orders have been issued under the garb of a central notification to extend the validity of environmental clearance in view of procedural hassles owing to the COVID-19.
It is suspected that bribe worth crores of rupees changed hands prior to the state's decision which facilitates quarrying for one more year without any special permission.
The central relief
The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had issued a notification for extending environmental clearance for quarries taking COVID-19 restrictions into consideration.
The central notification issued on January 18 says that if the environment clearance of quarries which had stopped functioning because of Covid-19 restrictions had expired, then they would be deemed to have clearance for a period of one year from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.
The exemption was given as inspection of quarries prior to extending permit could not be carried out due to the restrictions in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
However, the Department of Industries of the Kerala government issued an order extending the mining lease and permit of all quarries just before the announcement of polls by the Election Commission of India.
The ramifications
The state's environment impact assessment authority grants environmental clearance to quarries for a period of five year each. But with the new Kerala government order even quarries which had already carried out mining up to the permissible limit will also be able to carry out mining activities for one more year. Business worth crores of rupees is possible even after paying royalty and other fees.
As per the new order over 100 quarries up to 1 hectare have secured one-year extra permit. Moreover, 750 quarries above 1 hectares gained mining lease for 5 to 12 years.
The move was initiated by the government including the Department of Mining and Geology despite the fact that permit or lease cannot be extended just on the basis of the extension of environmental clearance.
Now, the government stands to lose a huge amount that should come to it by way of stamp duty for land registration if fresh tenures had come into force.
During the COVID-19 lockdown phases last year stop memos were issued to quarries only for one-and-a- half months. A majority of the quarries continued their operations for the rest of the lockdown period.
