New mineral policy eyes at enhancing mining sector's share in GDP to 6%

It would explore minerals in 800,000 sq km areas with mining potential; to also ensure use of space tech to check illegal mining

The National Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP) was unveiled on Monday, with an aim to explore the new mining areas across the country and enhance the mining sector’s share to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to six per cent.

“This work (of formulating NMEP) could have been done earlier but it had been done 68 years after India’s Independence,” said Union Minister for Mines & Mineral Narendra Singh Tomar, while unveiling the policy with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Monday afternoon. The atomic mineral policy too was unveiled.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was the chief guest at the function. His flight, however, could not land on time in Raipur due to inclement weather. He arrived four hours later and inaugurated the pilot project to execute the development works in five villages, in the Naxal-infested Dantewada district, under the newly-introduced Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana.

The scheme would be executed through the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) under the new policy. The foundation would raise fund from the mining activities in the respective district and utilise it for local development.

Jaitley said the scheme would end the contradiction that people living in pockets, endowed with rich minerals, were economically and socially backward. The DMF would create a corpus of Rs 6,000 crore every year. Under the pilot project taken up in Chhattisgarh, Rs 30 crore would be spent to make the five-village model.

The new mineral policy would explore minerals in 800,000 sq km areas with mining potential. “The mining sector’s contribution is just 2.4 per cent to the GDP, that we want to take to six per cent,” Tomar said, adding the new policy would facilitate 100 per cent exploration of minerals in the country.

A national aerogeophysical mapping programme would be launched to map the entire country with low altitude and close space flight to delineate the deep-seated and concealed mineral deposits.

Besides, the new policy would ensure use of space technology to check illegal mining. Tomar said the modern technology had been experimented with the state authorities at a few places and it had garnered good response.