After mineral royalty rise, Tomar asks state CMs to help sector

Following Wednesday's cabinet decision to raise mineral royalty rates, Union steel and mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar has written to chief ministers to take investor-friendly measures.

States get the revenues collected from royalty and the Centre retains the powers to fix or revise it. The revision is supposed to be done every three years but was pending since 2012; the previous revision was in 2009. Chhattisgarh's royalty collection is likely to swell by 46.8 per cent to Rs 1,976 crore from Rs 1,346 crore as in FY11-12. Goa would get Rs 1,414 crore from Rs 943 crore earlier.

Karnataka, where mining activity was banned in 2011, had collected Rs 353 crore royalty in 2011-12. This might go up to Rs 513 crore. Rajasthan's royalty collection is set to go up to Rs 1,533 crore from Rs 1,300 crore earlier. And, Madhya Pradesh to Rs 472 crore from Rs 376 crore earlier, by government estimates. Tomar is to meet Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik next week to seek his views on rejuvenating the mining sector.

He has already met the CMs of Goa, Rajasthan and Karnataka, and the industry minister of Gujarat.