The Economic Affairs Ministry is waiting for the government’s directives to regulate the mines and minerals in the country after the parliament deferred the Bill indefinitely last month. Today there are three documents regulating mines and minerals. They are the Mines and Minerals Management Act 1995, the Mines and Minerals Management Regulations 2002 and the Mineral Development Policy 2017.
The Economic Affairs Minister said the decision will come from the cabinet.
“Today, three major mines like Coal, Gypsum and Dolomite are run by the state and it will remain so. Only after discussing further and reviewing all the rules and regulations, we will come up with a directive. For now, there is nothing to rush immediately. We have no plans to use the 1995 Act just because the Bill was deferred,” said Loknath Sharma, the Minister for Economic Affairs.
The minister said they will come up with rules in three to six months. Lyonpo said even if the Bill was passed, it would take six months to implement since they have to make proper rules. The National Council is also confident the government will not use the 26-year-old Act. They said doing so would be morally wrong.
“The reason for amending the Act is because the 1995 Act has so many problems. And secondly, the Economic Affairs Minister in the joint sitting said that the government gave major mining to the state and henceforth, it will be given to the state. So even if the Bill was not passed, what the government is doing right now is in accordance with the constitution and if they continue to do that, there is no problem,” said Tashi Dorji, the Chairperson of the National Council.
The council doesn’t want the government to use the 1995 Act.
“If the government make any decisions or does anything which becomes unconstitutional, the National Council will also immediately reintroduce the Bill. Because what the government is doing right now is constitutional, we in the National Council have also not discussed it yet,” the Chairperson added.
The dispute was about who should have ownership of the mines. The government wants both the private sector and the state to run the mines. But the council wants all mines to be run by the state to prevent a few private individuals from getting rich.
The debate revolved in the interpretation of the constitution that says, “The rights over mineral resources, rivers, lakes and forests shall vest in the state and are the properties of the state, which will be regulated by law”. According to the national law review taskforce 2018, those provisions in the Act and Rules that give mining rights to private companies must be amended so that there are no violations of the constitutional provisions.
Samten Dolkar
Edited by Tandin Phuntsho
