By annulling the Nayakkarpatti tungsten block auction in Madurai, the Union Government has halted protests against a project that was red-flagged, tardily, by the State citing environmental and cultural concerns. Rarely has the Narendra Modi government made a swift ‘U-turn’ in the face of opposition. Nayakkarpatti was among eight critical and strategic mineral blocks put up for auction last February by the Mines Ministry. Eight months later, the contract for mining 2,015.51 hectares was awarded to Vedanta’s Hindustan Zinc Limited. However, the presence of Arittapatti, Tamil Nadu’s first biodiversity heritage site, in the vicinity, triggered concerns. An Assembly resolution pointed out that mining could endanger historical cave temples, Jain symbols, Tamil Brahmi scripts and a habitat for rare species. The Centre and the BJP were initially on the defensive, arguing that of the 20.16 sq. km area, only 1.93 sq. km within Arittapatti and Meenakshipuram villages had been notified as a biodiversity site. Last month, the Ministry deferred issuance of Letter of Intent to the bidder, and asked the Geological Survey of India (GSI) to explore redefining the boundaries by excluding the biodiversity site. But the Centre annulled the auction before the GSI could act, after a meeting with community leaders from Madurai, led by BJP State president K. Annamalai, and the Mines Minister.
Politics seems to have played a larger role than India’s strategic need for tungsten or the Centre’s and State’s claims that they had acted in deference to people’s wishes. Tungsten, or wolfram, a dense lustrous metal, is crucial for industries such as defence and in high technology fields. It has no effective substitutes. Globally, tungsten is stockpiled. Indigenously rare, only 5% of tungsten mining resources are in Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, with the rest distributed in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Though the State had flagged the biodiversity issue to the Centre, there is no clear indication that the DMK government was openly opposed to the auction. Reports suggest that prior to the amendment of the Mines and Minerals Act, which empowered the Centre to exclusively auction mining leases for critical minerals, the State’s Natural Resources Department had requested permission to mine tungsten and molybdenum through joint ventures. Regardless of the political dynamics, the importance and scarcity of tungsten cannot be overstated. The Centre might have been more effective had it consulted the State and waited for the GSI’s report before making a decision, striking a balance between environmental concerns and the strategic need for tungsten mining by adjusting the block boundaries.
Published – January 29, 2025 12:10 am IST