Mines ministry to fast-track mineral concessions

The mines ministry has drawn up plans to tighten state-level governance machinery for eradicating delays in grant of mineral concessions — the reason why miners are drawn towards illegal mining practices. It includes setting up state empowered committees and district level task forces to monitor concession system, giving more powers to state mining directorates and faster environment clearances. It was finalised at a meeting of the Central Coordination-cum-Empowered Committee of the mines ministry chaired by mining secretary Vijay Kumar.

The measures are expected to bring greater transparency in the system for grant of mineral concessions.

Other issues discussed in the meeting include use of satellite imagery to help curb illegal mining through detection of lease area violations and plugging loopholes in the royalty collection system.

A spurt in illegal mining activities has led the Supreme Court to impose a blanket ban on all iron ore mining activities in Karnataka, the country’s chief iron ore producing states. The government’s move to amend the mining law of 1957 also has elaborate provisions for checking illegal practices in mining.

Illegal mining is identified by experts as a major reason why growth in the country’s mineral production in value terms dipped to 10 per cent last financial year from 17 per cent in 2005-06.