RTI for Goa Directorate of Mines and Geology — Iron Ore Lease, Royalty and DMF Fund Records

Iron ore has shaped Goa in ways that no other natural resource has. It built the wealth of mining families, funded the state exchequer for decades, and transformed the plateaus of Sanguem, Quepem, Bicholim, Sattari, and Dharbandora from forested hill country into a landscape of open-cast pits, ore-processing facilities, conveyor belts, and barge-loading jetties on iron-red rivers. It also generated some of the most consequential environmental litigation in independent India's legal history — culminating in two separate Supreme Court orders halting all mining in Goa, in 2012 and again in 2018. For the citizens of mining villages who watched rivers turn rusty with ore slurry, whose wells went dry or silted, and who were promised welfare funds that never arrived, the Right to Information Act, 2005 is a direct legal route to force accountability from the Directorate of Mines and Geology — the Goa government department that regulates, monitors, and collects revenues from every iron ore mining lease in the state.

This guide explains what the Directorate of Mines and Geology does, what records it holds, how to file an effective RTI application, and how to pursue First and Second Appeals all the way to the Goa Information Commission (GIC) if the response is inadequate.

The Directorate of Mines and Geology: Role and Mandate

The Directorate of Mines and Geology (DMG), Government of Goa, is headquartered at Dayanand Bandodkar Marg in Panaji. It functions under the Department of Mines (or Mines and Geology Department, as designated by the Government of Goa) and is the primary state-level authority for regulation of mining activities in Goa. Its functions are rooted in the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act) and the Goa, Daman and Diu Mining Concessions (Abolition and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, 1987, as well as the Mineral Concession Rules and Mineral Conservation and Development Rules framed under the MMDR Act.

Core Regulatory Functions

The Directorate's functions include:

• Granting and administering mining leases: Issuing mining leases (now predominantly through auction-based grant under the MMDR Amendment Acts of 2015 and 2021), maintaining the register of leases, monitoring lease conditions, and taking action on violations.
• Mine inspection and safety oversight: Deploying mine inspectors to conduct periodic inspections of operating mines and quarries, assessing compliance with safety regulations, environmental management plans, and lease conditions.
• Royalty collection: Assessing and collecting royalty on minerals extracted by lessees as per the royalty rates notified by the Central Government under the MMDR Act. Royalty is the state's primary direct revenue from mining.
• Illegal mining enforcement: Investigating complaints of mining outside lease boundaries, mining without a valid lease, illegal ore transportation, and theft of ore. The Directorate can order FIRs, suspend leases, and seize machinery used in illegal mining.
• District Mineral Foundation (DMF) administration: Overseeing the collection of DMF contributions from mining lessees and the governance of the DMF trusts for North Goa and South Goa districts, which are the repositories of welfare funds for mining-affected communities.
• Electronic ore-permit system: Managing the electronic permit system for ore dispatch — each truckload or barge-load of ore dispatched from a mine must carry a digitally-generated electronic permit, which is the primary instrument for preventing ore theft and tracking extraction volumes.

The MMDR Act Framework

The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 is the Central legislation governing mining across India. Key amendments in 2015 and 2021 have significantly changed the grant framework:

• The 2015 MMDR Amendment introduced mandatory competitive auction (e-auction) for grant of new mining leases for most minerals, replacing the previous first-come-first-served discretionary grant system.
• The 2021 MMDR Amendment further expanded the types of minerals to be auctioned and made provision for Composite Licence (Prospecting-cum-Mining Lease, PL-cum-ML) to encourage exploration.
• Under these amendments, existing leases that expired cannot be simply renewed — they must go through fresh auction unless they qualify as a captive mine or meet other specific exemptions. It was precisely this issue — the State Government purporting to renew expired leases without auction — that led the Supreme Court to suspend mining again in 2018.

The DMG is the ground-level implementing authority for these Central legislative changes in Goa.

Goa's Iron Ore Sector: The Two Supreme Court Bans

No citizen seeking information from the DMG can understand the current status of any lease without knowing the history of Goa Foundation litigation.

The 2012 Ban: Goa Foundation v. Union of India

In 2010, the Government of India constituted a high-level committee under retired Supreme Court judge Justice M.B. Shah to investigate illegal mining across India. The Shah Commission's report on Goa, submitted in 2012, was a damning indictment: it found that mining companies had routinely mined beyond lease boundaries, bribed officials, transported ore without permits, and caused billions of rupees in losses to the state exchequer. The Supreme Court, taking up the matter in Goa Foundation v. Union of India (2013) 6 SCC 476, suspended all iron ore mining in Goa in October 2012. The Court found that the cumulative illegal extraction ran into thousands of crore rupees and that the state government's regulatory system had substantially failed.

Mining was allowed to resume from September 2015, subject to conditions imposed by the Supreme Court including a cap on annual extraction (initially 20 million metric tonnes per year), mandatory payments into an environment protection fund, and oversight by a monitoring committee.

The 2018 Ban: Lease Renewals Held Illegal

In February 2018, the Supreme Court in a further order in the Goa Foundation proceedings held that the State Government had illegally renewed 88 mining leases under the 2015 MMDR Amendment. The Court's reasoning was that these leases had already expired under the original MMDR Act terms — and the 2015 Amendment's deemed-extension provisions did not apply to leases that had been renewed earlier using a separate provision of the MMDR Act. This ruling effectively meant that all these 88 mines had to stop production immediately. The Supreme Court directed that the State Government go through fresh auction for re-granting these blocks.

Since 2018, new auction-based leases have been granted for some blocks, and a small number of mines have resumed production under these freshly-auctioned leases. The scale of mining is a fraction of its pre-2012 level. Iron ore continues to be exported to China and other markets, as it has been since the 1960s, but the volume and the number of operational mines are both substantially reduced from the peaks of 2009–2012.

Current Position (as of mid-2026)

Goa's mining sector remains in a contested, partially-resumed state. A handful of blocks have been successfully auctioned and operational. Several others have been auctioned but face legal challenges from former lessees. Environmental clearances, forest clearances, and wildlife clearances (several mining areas fall within or adjacent to wildlife sanctuary boundaries) are under various stages of processing. Citizens and village councils in mining talukas have continued to press for effective DMF utilisation, de-silting of rivers, and restoration of water sources affected by decades of mining.

What RTI Can Yield from the Directorate of Mines and Geology

Mining Lease Records

The DMG maintains the principal register of all mining leases in Goa — past and present. RTI applications can obtain:

• The complete details of any iron ore mining lease: lease number, lessee name, location by survey number and village, lease area in hectares, date of original grant, date(s) of renewal (if any), current status (active, expired, suspended, surrendered, cancelled), and any conditions specifically attached to the lease.
• Certified copies of lease deeds and renewal orders — these are the source documents that establish the legal authority (or lack thereof) under which a mine is operating.
• The register of pending lease applications — who has applied for a new lease or composite licence in a specific taluka and the current stage of processing.
• The auction results for mining blocks auctioned post-2018 — the block details, the date of auction, the winning bidder, the upfront payment made, and the current status of lease execution.

Royalty Payment Records

Royalty is the most important direct revenue stream the state earns from mining. RTI can produce:

• Quarterly or annual royalty statements for any lease, showing ore dispatched (in metric tonnes), the royalty rate per tonne applicable (as notified by the Central Government), the royalty assessed, the amount paid, and any arrears.
• Demand notices and recovery proceedings for royalty arrears — whether any lessee owes outstanding royalty to the state, the amount of arrears, and whether recovery action has been initiated.
• The aggregate royalty collected from all iron ore leases in a given financial year, and the break-up by taluka — a key indicator of the scale and distribution of mining activity.
• Records of any short-payment penalty levied for under-reporting of ore dispatch through the electronic permit system.

Illegal Mining Complaints and ATRs

Complaints about illegal mining — mining beyond lease boundaries, mining on un-leased forest or private land, illegal ore transportation, ore stockpiling without permits — are received by the DMG and must be investigated by mine inspectors. RTI can obtain:

• The full action-taken report (ATR) on any specific complaint, including the date of complaint, field inspection conducted, findings of the mine inspector, and action taken: whether a show-cause notice was issued, an FIR was filed, machinery was seized, or the lease was suspended.
• The complete register of illegal mining complaints received in a specified period from a specified village or taluka — and the action taken on each.
• Details of any FIR lodged by the DMG against a mining lessee or ore transporter for illegal mining.
• Reports of the Flying Squad (if operational) or special inspection teams constituted to check illegal mining along specific routes or in specific talukas.

Mine Inspector Visit Reports

Mine inspectors are the DMG's field-level watchdogs. Their visit reports document what they observed at each mine during each inspection — compliance with safety conditions, overburden management, slope stability, dust suppression, compliance with the environmental management plan, ore stockpile management, and lease boundary adherence. RTI can produce:

• Certified copies of inspection reports for any specified mine and period.
• The schedule of inspections — how frequently each operating mine has been inspected in a given year.
• Any directions issued to a lessee following an inspection, and the lessee's reply and compliance record.
• Inspection reports filed after accidents or incidents at a mine.

These reports are critical for communities near mines who want to establish on the record that DMG inspectors visited but failed to report violations, or that violations were documented but no follow-up action was taken.

District Mineral Foundation (DMF) Fund Utilisation

The DMF is among the most significant governance innovations introduced by the 2015 MMDR Amendment. Under Section 9B of the MMDR Act, 1957, every mining lessee in Goa must contribute a percentage of their royalty payment to the District Mineral Foundation of the district in which the mine is located — currently at rates ranging from 10 to 30 percent of royalty depending on the lease type. These contributions accumulate into a trust fund that must be used exclusively for the welfare of persons and areas affected by mining, under the Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana (PMKKKY) guidelines issued by the Ministry of Mines, Government of India.

For villages near iron ore mines in Quepem, Sanguem, Dharbandora (South Goa) and Bicholim, Sattari (North Goa), the DMF fund is a legal entitlement — money that has been paid by mining companies specifically for the welfare of communities that have borne the environmental and social costs of mining. RTI is the single most powerful tool for holding DMF trustees accountable.

RTI applications to the DMG can obtain:

• Total DMF contributions received from each mining lessee by year.
• The list of villages designated as "directly affected" and "indirectly affected" by mining for DMF benefit purposes — the basis on which villages were included or excluded.
• The complete project-wise list of DMF expenditure approved: type of work, village covered, amount sanctioned, implementing agency, date of sanction, and current status (completed or in progress).
• Minutes of the DMF Trust governing body meetings (which typically include the District Collector as Chairperson and senior district officers).
• Audit reports of the DMF Trust for each financial year.
• The specific allocation for drinking water, water source protection, de-silting of water bodies, and village infrastructure projects — the categories that most directly address the water source contamination caused by mining.

If DMF funds have been collected from mining companies but not spent — or if projects are shown as completed but on-ground inspection reveals they have not been executed — this is actionable through RTI, followed by complaints to the Ministry of Mines (for PMKKKY implementation failures) and the Goa Information Commission.

Electronic Permit System Data

The electronic ore-permit system — introduced following the Shah Commission report as a check on illegal ore dispatch — generates records of every truckload and barge-load of ore dispatched from a mining lease. These records are held by the DMG. RTI can obtain:

• Total quantity of ore dispatched from any specific lease in a given period, per the electronic permit system records.
• Whether permits were issued for ore dispatched from a lease that was in a suspended or expired status (a red flag for illegal ore movement).
• The designated transportation routes for ore from specific leases, and compliance with route restrictions.

Compliance with Supreme Court Monitoring Orders

Following the Goa Foundation judgments, the Supreme Court constituted monitoring committees to oversee mining resumption and compliance. The DMG is the state-level implementation arm for these orders. RTI can produce:

• Compliance reports submitted by the State Government / DMG to the Supreme Court monitoring committee.
• Records of the production cap compliance: how much ore has been extracted in the current year versus the permitted annual limit.
• Action taken on any violations flagged by the monitoring committee.

Step-by-Step: How to File RTI with the Directorate of Mines and Geology

Step 1: Identify Your Specific Information Need

Before drafting, define precisely what you need. Common scenarios:

• You are a villager and want to know if the mine near your village holds a valid lease and has paid DMF contributions.
• You are a journalist or researcher wanting aggregate royalty data or production statistics.
• You are a community activist wanting the ATR on an illegal mining complaint you or others filed months ago.
• You are a panchayat member wanting the DMF project list for your village and the expenditure status.

Draft each point as a specific, numbered question referencing the lease number, mine name, village, taluka, time period, or complaint number as applicable. Avoid omnibus requests.

Step 2: Draft and File Online at rtionline.gov.in

The most trackable method is to file at https://rtionline.gov.in:

1. Visit rtionline.gov.in and click "Submit Request."
2. Select "Goa" as the state.
3. Navigate to "Directorate of Mines and Geology" as the public authority.
4. Type your numbered RTI questions in the text field.
5. Pay the ₹10 fee online.
6. Note your registration number — this is your reference for tracking and appeals.

An email acknowledgement is sent immediately. The 30-day response clock starts from the date the CPIO receives the application.

Step 3: File by Post (Alternative)

Draft your application on plain paper addressed to the CPIO, Directorate of Mines and Geology, Dayanand Bandodkar Marg, Panaji – 403001, Goa. Attach a ₹10 Indian Postal Order (IPO) in favour of the Pay and Accounts Officer, Government of Goa. Send by Registered Post with Acknowledgement Due and retain the receipt. BPL cardholders are exempt from the fee — attach a self-attested copy of your BPL ration card. Write "RTI Application under the Right to Information Act, 2005" on the envelope.

Step 4: Await Response Within 30 Days

Under Section 7(1) of the RTI Act, the CPIO must furnish the information within 30 days of receipt. For information concerning the life or liberty of a person, the Section 7(1) proviso requires a response within 48 hours. Track your application using the online acknowledgement number or postal tracking reference.

Step 5: If No Response — File First Appeal

If the 30-day window closes without a response, or the response is partial or evasive, proceed to First Appeal without delay.

First Appeal: Section 19(1)

File a First Appeal under Section 19(1) of the RTI Act if:

• No response is received within 30 days.
• The response is incomplete, evasive, or the CPIO claims the information is not held without adequate basis.
• The CPIO provides obviously incorrect or misleading information.

Deadline: Within 30 days of the date of the CPIO's decision or expiry of the 30-day response period, whichever is applicable.

Addressee: The First Appellate Authority (FAA) within the Directorate of Mines and Geology — typically the Director of Mines and Geology or another officer formally designated as FAA.

Content: Quote the original RTI registration number and date; state each piece of information you sought; describe the deficiency in the CPIO's response; and request a direction to furnish the information. Attach copies of the original RTI application and the CPIO's response (or delivery confirmation if no response was received). No fee is payable.

The FAA must decide the First Appeal within 30 days (extendable to 45 days with written reasons recorded).

Second Appeal: Goa Information Commission (GIC)

If the FAA does not decide within the prescribed period, or the FAA's decision is unsatisfactory, file a Second Appeal under Section 19(3) of the RTI Act with the Goa Information Commission (GIC).

Deadline: Within 90 days of the FAA's order or the expiry of the FAA's response period.

The correct body is the GIC, not the CIC. The Directorate of Mines and Geology is a Government of Goa department — it is a state public authority. The Goa Information Commission is established under Section 15 of the RTI Act as the appellate authority for all Goa state public authorities. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has jurisdiction only over Central Government bodies and has no authority over any Goa state department. Filing a second appeal with the CIC for a DMG matter would result in it being returned as not maintainable, and you would lose your 90-day window.

Powers of the GIC: The Goa Information Commission can:

• Direct the DMG to disclose the withheld or incomplete information.
• Under Section 20 of the RTI Act, impose a penalty of ₹250 per day (up to a maximum of ₹25,000) on the defaulting CPIO personally for unjustified denial, delay, or provision of false or misleading information.
• Recommend disciplinary proceedings against the CPIO.
• Award compensation to the applicant in appropriate cases.

No fee is payable for filing the Second Appeal. Include copies of the original RTI application, the CPIO's response, the First Appeal, and the FAA's order (or proof of non-response at each stage).

Practical Tips for an Effective RTI to the Directorate of Mines and Geology

Always cite the lease number. Goa's DMG records are indexed primarily by mining lease number. If you know the lease number of the mine near your village (visible on the lease board at the mine site, or obtainable from the DMG's public register), cite it in every request. An RTI that names a mine by the company name alone — without the lease number — is more likely to receive a delayed or incomplete response.

For DMF queries, specify the district and financial year. DMF trusts are district-specific (North Goa DMF and South Goa DMF). Specify whether you are asking about North Goa or South Goa DMF, and give the financial year clearly. Also ask for the names of the villages designated as "directly affected" — if your village is not on the list, you can challenge that designation separately.

Ask for the electronic permit dispatch data alongside royalty records. If you suspect under-reporting of ore extraction, ask for both the royalty-assessed quantity and the electronic permit dispatch quantity for the same lease and period. Discrepancies between these two figures can indicate royalty evasion or permit misuse.

Request certified copies, not just information. For lease deeds, inspection reports, and DMF project sanction orders, specifically write "certified copy" — an officially stamped and signed copy that carries evidentiary value before courts, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), or the Goa Information Commission.

Use RTI alongside complaints to the Central Empowered Committee (CEC). The Supreme Court's Central Empowered Committee continues to monitor mining and forest clearance matters in Goa. RTI-obtained DMG records are valuable annexures when filing representations to the CEC about compliance failures.

For water source issues, combine DMG RTI with Goa State Pollution Control Board RTI. If iron ore slurry has contaminated your village's river or well, file RTI with both the DMG (for mine inspection reports and complaint ATRs) and the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) (for pollution consent conditions and water quality monitoring data). Both are Goa state bodies; both use rtionline.gov.in; both are subject to second appeal to the Goa Information Commission.

For mine-related forest diversion, also file with the State Forest Department. Several mining leases in Goa involve portions of forest land diverted under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. The compliance conditions for such diversions — afforestation, compensatory payments into the Compensatory Afforestation Fund — are monitored by the Forest Department. File RTI with the Goa Forest Department's CPIO separately for forest diversion compliance records.

File within limitation periods. For First Appeals, the 30-day deadline from the CPIO's decision or expiry of the response period is strictly applied. For Second Appeals, the 90-day deadline from the FAA's order is equally strict. Do not let these periods lapse waiting for a voluntary response that may never come.

RTI Act Sections Reference

The following provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005 are directly relevant to filing RTI with the Directorate of Mines and Geology:

• Section 2(h) — Definition of "public authority." The Directorate of Mines and Geology, Government of Goa is a public authority, fully subject to the RTI Act.
• Section 6 — Filing of an RTI application with the CPIO of the public authority. Citizens are not required to give any reason for seeking information.
• Section 7(1) — The CPIO must furnish the requested information within 30 days of receipt of the application.
• Section 7(1) proviso — Where information concerns the life or liberty of a person, the CPIO must respond within 48 hours.
• Section 19(1) — First Appeal to the First Appellate Authority (FAA) within the DMG, to be filed within 30 days of the date of the CPIO's decision or the expiry of the 30-day response period, whichever is applicable.
• Section 19(3) — Second Appeal to the Goa Information Commission (GIC), to be filed within 90 days of the FAA's order or expiry of the FAA's response period.
• Section 20 — Penalty of ₹250 per day (up to ₹25,000) on the CPIO personally for unjustified denial, delay, or misleading response; the GIC may also recommend disciplinary proceedings.

Iron ore has been extracted from Goa's red laterite hills for more than a century. The communities who live with the consequences — silted rivers, depleted wells, ore dust on rooftops, damaged roads, disrupted livelihoods — have a legal right to know what their government knows: whether the mines operating near them hold valid leases, whether the royalty owed to the public treasury is being paid, whether the DMF welfare fund is being spent in their villages, and whether mine inspector reports document the violations that are plainly visible to the naked eye. The RTI Act, the Directorate of Mines and Geology, and the Goa Information Commission together form the accountability chain that makes this transparency possible. An RTI application costs ₹10 and 30 minutes. The information it can yield is the foundation for every other legal remedy available to affected communities.