Of Funds And Fallacy

Poor implementation of the District Mineral Foundation has excluded some of the worst mining-affected people, whom it was supposed to benefit.

- Srestha Banerjee And Chinmayi Shalya

MORE THAN three years after the Centre rolled out the District Mineral Foundation (DMF)—an institution set up to benefit India’s mining-affected people—life remains a daily struggle for Jhinki, a resident of Chhattisgarh’s tribal Korba district. The irony is that despite having an impressive ₹ 674 crore, the DMF fund in Korba has done little to provide Jhinki and others in the district access to clean water, healthcare, nutrition, education or livelihood options. The plight of Jhinki is shared by many more people in India’s mining areas, even though the country has collected over ₹ 19,400 crore under DMF.

After a decade of deliberations, DMF  was instituted in March 2015 by amending the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act (1957) to “work for the interest and benefit of persons, and areas affected by mining-related operations”. Today, poor implementation has shadowed its prospects, with many fearing it might just be reduced to another general government scheme. The mining districts, ironically, are the richest lands in the country inhabited by some of the most deprived people.

The law says a DMF trust has to be set up in all the mining districts of the country. The trust will receive payments from the mining companies operating in the district. “DMF technically can be a game changer for India’s mining-affected people and areas. The fund, which is untied and non-lapsable, provides a defining opportunity to overturn the decades of injustice meted out to the millions living in India’s mining districts. But DMF can only deliver if it is implemented in letter and spirit of the law,” says Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general of New Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (cse) (see ‘A dig at the poor’,