KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – India’s Mines Ministry is pushing 21 mineral bearing states to bring about better organisation and governance of the fragmented minor mineral sector, plagued by illegal mining and major law and order issues.
The Mines Ministry has convened a meeting of all these states next week, to take stock and is expected to issue a directive laying down the roadmap for governance and monitoring of the minor mineral sector.
The meeting with state representatives will be held under the aegis of a central co-ordination cum empowered committee, led by the Secretary in the Mines Ministry.
It has been learnt that the states will be directed to implement mining surveillance systems (MSS) across all minor mineral leases and BISAG (formerly known as Remote Sensing and Communication Center) has already provided detailed remote sensing scenes of minor mineral mining across the country.
The Ministry has taken a strong stand against most states having failed to plot the status of working minor mineral leases in their respective geographies, according to documents of the meeting made available. All states are expected to submit a roadmap of how they intend to plot all working minor mineral mines under MSS within specified timeframes.
Another issue expected to be flagged is extension of the star rating of mines, as is in place for major minerals, to cover all minor mineral mines.
The Mines Ministry has provided each state with templates for the star rating of minor minerals, largely based along the lines of the template for major minerals. The star ratings are aimed at adopting sustainable mining practices.
The states are also expected to provide details of all projects undertaken or identified in minor mineral exploration, which could be funded through the National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) fund.
The details to be submitted to the Mines Ministry included adoption and migration of accounting procedures of NMET by the states, models for participation of minor mineral exploration under private-public partnerships and status of all funds collected under NMET.
The Mines Ministry is also expected to take the opportunity to meet the states to take stock of the 21 states' preparedness in completing G2 level of exploration of all the estimated 288 operational mines across the country whose mining leases were to expire in 2020, and which would be up for re-allocation through the auction route.
The Mines Ministry has made it mandatory for the states to complete fresh exploration up to G2 level for all these operational mines by April 2019, in order for fresh auctions to be completed well before the expiry of existing leases to prevent any eventuality of the mines having to close down upon the expiry of leases.