What is however painful to note is that all the controversies and debates on illegal mining or the mining of iron ore as such, completely obliviated the miserable working and living conditions of the actual miners. Without the miners' back-breaking labour there can be no iron ore exports, no profits nor any revenues. It can, of course, be counter-posed that if the present complement of workers refuse to serve the illegal doers, hundreds, nay, thousands would be in the queues to get a job on illegal or otherwise project. That is how a 'liberaliser' would argue. And, as for the mafia, it would get work done without any compensation. But, then, whoever takes their place will have to accept the same gruesome working and living conditions without any ifs and buts - the conditions of virtual wage-slavery in the India of twenty-first century.

The dimension of the illegal mining is really sizeable and not confined to Karnataka or the home district of the much-talked about Reddy brothers, Bellary. According to official statistics, there are over 23,700 working mines spread across the country. Out of these, 15,000 are illegal mines and only 8,700 are legally operated ones.

The exact number of miners employed in all these mines is not available nor it is likely to be available because owners of the illegally operated mines are not expected to notify the number of their workers. That apart, even the legally operated mines nowadays keep two categories of miners - regular miners and contract miners. Under the ongoing liberalisation practices, employers notify only the regular workers and not the contract workers. More, to avoid being caught violating the provisions of Contract Labour Act, workers on contract are turned into casual workers even while contract work continues. That is the fate of the unorganised workers, especially under today's LPG conditions.

The country has huge untapped mineral resources. These are being avidly eyed by not only the national corporates but also by multinational companies. The country's liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation (LPG) regime is giving them all-out support.

It needs to be remembered that in the post-Independence decades, the mineral policy has passed through two phases. The first phase started with the 1956 Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR), under which the mining of major minerals like Coal, Lignite, Mineral Oil, Iron Ore, Copper, Zinc and Atomic Minerals were all exclusive preserve of the public sector. The private sector investors were allowed to extract minerals along with the PSUs.

The second phase was marked by the post-liberalisation shift to the National Mineral Policy (NMP) outlined by the Central Government in 1993. It was designed to encourage the private sector investors in exploration and mining. NMP opened up a number of major minerals for private sector. These included Iron Ore, Manganese Ore, Chrome Ore, Sulphur, Gold, Diamond, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Tungsten, Nickel and Platinum.

The liberalisation phase was also marked by opening the way for foreign technology and foreign participation in exploration and mining. Initially, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance was considered necessary if FDI was upto 50 per cent of equity. In 1997, however, the 50 per cent FDI equity was taken out of the purview of FIPB. And, in 2006 FDI upto 100 per cent was permitted in mining.

What about the labour policy during the two phases? During the first phase under the Industrial Policy Resolution, the Government effort was to win the workers' or their unions' active participation in industrial development. Major policy issues were discussed in the national tripartite and Indian Labour Conference and decisions were taken on issues by consensus. Other issues on which there were differences, were left to be discussed in industrywise tripartites or ILC's Standing Labour Committee.

In this context, the case of Coal Industry and evolution of its industrial relations need special mention. The Coal Industry today employs six to seven lakh workers. During early post-Independence decades, in order to pull the country out of coloured backwardness, public sector industries were being developed. These needed power and coal was then the main source of power. In order to ensure proper development of the Coal Industry, it was “nationalised” in the seventies. Steel and Mines Minister Mohan Kumaramangalam had said that private operator were butchering the Coal Industry for profit.

The next step for proper development of Coal Industry was that Kumaramangalam convened a joint meeting of all coalmen's unions/federations, active in the industry, for conducting wage negotiations between coalmen federations of differing affiliations and Coal Industry managements. Though a long and arduous task, for the first time, a collective wage settlement was reached. The settlement contained two additional provisions that need special mention. One pertained to the question of taking care of production and productivity. The second one provided that the wage settlement shall be renegotiated every five years. Since this process was considered necessary to win workers support for uninterrupted development of the public sector industry, the same process was followed up in all other public sector industries. The various laws were enacted/amended accordingly.

In the liberalized second phase, the Government has put its foot down on the five-year term for PSU wage settlements; instead, unions were asked to agree on 10-year term for settlement even prior to start of wage negotiations. All CTUOs rejected this pre-condition. As a result, wage negotiations got procrastinated. This, however, was only the tip of the iceberg that made for the LPG regime's labour policy which in brief was : every Government cooperation to corporates for extracting maximum from their employees and almost nil support to workers/miner to defend their rights. Contractorisation, casualisation, no security of job have become the norm. Unionisation is virtually treated as a crime in the upcoming private sector companies of all denominations. Registration of unions has become a problem. Non-implementation of labour laws has become 'unsaid' practice of the UPA-2 Government.

That is why all central trade union organisations (CTUOs), which are preparing for an all-India general strike on September 7, 2010, on a 5-point demand charter, have included in it the demand for “strict enforcement of all labour laws”.

In this backdrop, the controversy over massive illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka can be said to symbolize the performance of the LPG regime in the country insofar as the nation's valuable natural resources assets are concerned. Thousands of illegal mines are being operated obviously by the private sector companies. Fate of thousands, if not lakhs of miners working in these illegal mines remains anybody's guess. Enquiries with CTUOs have shown that they have yet to take cognisance of this socio-economic malady. Their strong presence in the coal mine sector could not persuade them to look beyond, into what was happening to miners in other minerals sectors.

Meanwhile, the Union Mines and Minerals Ministry fiddled with the draft Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Bill, 2010. It seems that true to the LPG regime's style of work, the Bill sought to do away with the existing provision for prior approval of the Central Government for any mining project in the State. This was on the plea that the existing prior central approval provision was a mere formality. It was therefore a case of doing away with a formality. The Steel Ministry reportedly took strong exception to the Bill's proposal to do away with the Central approval for any mining project. The Steel Ministry believed that removal of the provision of prior approval would play havoc with the minerals sectors in the country. The large-scale illegal mining is an indicator of the malady of the prevailing situation. (IPA Service)