The District Mineral Foundations (DMF) are set up as nonprofit trust at district level under the provision MMDR amendment Act 2015 and came into force since January 12, 2015. As per the provision every mining lease holder has to pay a part of the royalty, 30 per cent of the royalty amount in case lease before January 12, 2015 and 10 per cent in case lease after this date, to the DMF as per rates decided by the Central Government.
In case of minor minerals, the State Government has decided 30 per ent of the royalty for lease granted not through auction and 10 per cent of the royalty in case lease granted through auction to be paid to the DMF. There are about 503 minor mineral mines, 666 major mineral mines and 30 coal mines in operation in the State. The fund will be spent for the welfare of mining affected people and the mining affected areas.
The Government of Odisha has made rules “Odisha District Mineral Foundations Rules 2015. The Ministry of Mines, Government of India, has developed Pradhan Mantri Khanij Khetra Kalyan Yojana (PMKKKY), a holistic scheme for the development of affected people in mining areas which has to be implemented by DMF. Now the DMFs are established in all districts.
So the functioning of DMF is quite significant for the development of mining areas of the State and this development is linked to the development of backward areas, mining affected areas, and marginalized groups those who have a large presence in mining areas.
The Odisha District Mineral Foundations Rules 2015 has created two structures -the board of trustees and the executive committee and both are headed by the district Collector as Chairperson. The project director of the District Rural Development Agency is the Chief Executive of the trust to monitor the day to day management and supervision of the activities of the trust. The district Collectors are its managing trusty and these district level bodies are having representation of elected people’s representatives MP, MlA, PRI or local urban bodies’ leaders and district level Government officials. In the board there is no provision of representation of marginalised section in the affected areas such as SCs, STs, farmers, forest dwellers, especially vulnerable tribal groups and women. The participation of local civil society organisations, media, trade unions, and experts has been ignored. There is no scope to utilise the experience and expertise of the local available human resources and public spirited institutions.
The functioning of DMF is largely controlled by ruling party representatives and district level Government officials without the involvement of affected people, stakeholders and others concerned. The participation and voice of affected people and their suggestions on development work being denied and the responsibilities lies on bureaucracy. Though the fund is primarily targeted to the mining affected people but there is no scope of participation of affected people to share their problems and concerns with DMF. According to rules, the mines areas in scheduled areas of the State must have adequate representation of STs in the DMF as per provisions of PESA Act 1996 and FRA 2006. The plan and project must have space of involvement of the target population for whom the fund is allocated but it has not been followed by the State.
The State level committee on DMF headed by Chief Secretary of Odisha along with Secretary Mines disclosed that in August 2016 about Rs 1,100 crore has been collected under DMF. The Government source says among major mineral bearing districts in the year 2016-2017 the district of Keonjhar has Rs 383.2 crore, Sundargarh has Rs 200.6 crore and Jajpur district has Rs 91.5 crore collected under DMF. However, it is being observed that the funds under DMF are not being spent properly as per its guidelines to meet the need of the affected people and affected areas in the district and many districts have not yet started spending the available fund under DMF. Even districts having major minerals such as Jajpur has no information about the activities of DMF in public domain. The affected people and affected areas have been defined in the guideline of PMKKKY. The affected areas includes directly affected areas and indirectly affected areas on account of mining operation and its impact in the physical structure, eco system, soil, water, air, forest etc. which leads to depletion of ground water, reduction in streams flows, deforestation, pollution and impact on carrying capacity of the area due to transportation etc. The ODMF rules say the affected area is an area within a radius of ten kilometers from a mine or cluster of mines but this must include more. The affected people include directly affected persons, affected families and displaced families as defined under section 3(c) and (k) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in land acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013. Added to this the Gramsabha has power to identify the affected persons and families in the mining areas. The affected families also include the landless poor and forest dwellers who have no record of rights and depend on the land and forest leased out for mining.
The DMF has to prepare a list of affected areas and affected people to plan the development project based on the identified information but such data is not available with the DMF of any district. It is important to prepare a database of affected area and affected people and identify them properly in due consultation with the affected people in the mines areas and such consultations must seek the opinion of the people and their suggestions for the development of the areas. The development must include both physical natural resources and local human resources. The DMF must identify the most deserving poor, landless, vulnerable tribal groups, women in distress such as single mother, women headed households, migrant workers, child labour and other such social groups in distress and disadvantage condition in mining areas. There is special provision for mining areas in Scheduled areas where the provisions for protection and development of STs such as PESA Act and FRA must be strictly followed to ensure the participation of STs. The approval of Grama Sabha shall be required for identification of beneficiaries, for all plans, programmes and projects to be taken up by DMF in scheduled areas of the State. But no such identification has been done by the DMF.
It is said that the DMF will substitute to the ongoing development projects and schemes of the State and Central Governments. The DMF core activities have high priority areas such as drinking water supply, environment, primary healthcare, sanitation, education, welfare of women and children, welfare of aged and disabled people and skill development for livelihood support and income generation of the affected people mostly the poor and marginalized sections. Along with DMF there are a host of other schemes and programmes as additional support to the mining areas. So mining areas and tribal areas have regular funds available from different sources which need an integrated long term plan in bringing desirable change in the mining affected areas.
The State Government must make available all kinds of information in public domain relating to DMF and make the process transparent and inclusive of different social groups.
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