Minister Raps States For Delay In Mine Licences

The Union minister of state for coal and mines, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said some states, including Maharashtra, were dragging their feet in granting licences to mining companies.

Prasad said mineral exploration was emerging as a very big business in the country following unveiling of the new mining policy.

He added that exploration agencies used aircraft fitted with sophisticated instruments to fly over unidentified mineral belts for searching out ground anomalies.

These detected anomalies later required detailed prospecting for which licences were required to be given by state governments.

Noting that the Centre had opened up the mining sector after liberalisation and amended the Mineral Regulations Act, Prasad said 70 foreign direct investment approvals worth Rs 3,900 crore had been granted in the mining sector.

"But, the Centre can do only so much as under the new law: the power to grant mining lease and prospecting licences rests with the states," he said.

Prasad said while some states such as Rajasthan had granted 64 licences, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka 20 licences each, Maharashtra had granted only 1 licence even as 9 applications were pending for the past one-and-a-half years.

These 9 applications included also those from South African major De Beers and ACC-Rio Tinto. Prasad urged state governments to co-operate in the matter and speed up the process of disposing the applications.