Govt scrambles to make sea mining policy

Cabinet secretary A K Seth told a committee of secretaries in mid-July to start work on pushing Indian mining activity in southern and central Indian Ocean. On July 11, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) allowed the exploration for polymetallic sulphides by China Ocean Minerals Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA).

 

The development sent shockwaves across the government. China has already blitzed its way through the mineral riches of Africa. Given China's focused efficiency in cornering rights, India expects the Chinese to move with equal efficiency and speed in this strategic sector as well. For India, it will be a double blow — not only does India believe it has first dibs in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi was there first. However, it failed to exploit its first mover advantage.

 

India, said government sources, is a "pioneer investor" in Indian Ocean's mineral exploration and mining sector. Even more than China, India has been prospecting an exploring for mineral resources like copper, cobalt and manganese among others in what are called "polymetallic" nodules in the depths of the Indian Ocean.

 

The National Security Council has been put on the job of drawing up a policy paper on the subject. Over the next couple of months, the government expects to move to a more proactive policy on mining the Indian Ocean. The ministry of earth sciences, which is the nodal ministry for such strategic investments, is underfunded and starved of attention. Sources said it has two ships that can do this work, but their inabilities are evident.

 

For at least the past six years, strategists in the Indian naval establishment have been asking the government to utilize India's mining rights in the Indian Ocean before China got in there first, and now China has. The difficulty, said officials who are participating in the policy review, is the lack of coordination among various government departments. China's move has taken a simple mining decision into a national security concern. This, they said, might be a reason for India to move faster than it usually does.

 

ISA has given permission to China in a new block in the Indian Ocean, and it's a perfectly legitimate request. India could have done any number of such exploratory activities since it has received rights for a large number of blocks. But, Indian inaction has meant that a number of these blocks have had to be surrendered to the ISA

 

Source: The Times of India, 03 Aug 2011