Goa govt notifies District Mineral Foundation rules

The Goa government has notified the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) rules which make it mandatory for mine owners to pay one-third of their royalty payment for developing areas in the mining belt.
The state Directorate of Mines and Geology (DMG) yesterday notified the Goa Districts Mineral Foundation Rules, 2016.
The rules are framed considering the principles of sustainable mining, inter-generational equity, protection of environment and ecology and fulfilling needs of the people affected with the mining activity.
Several objectives of the DMF are notified by Directorate of Mines and Geology, which includerestoring the ecology damaged by mining or other activity, providing health facilities, education, social welfare, building road / bridge network, desilting of water bodies including dams, rivers etc, installation of pollution control devices, sewage treatment plants, afforestation and others.

The rules make it mandatory that 50 per cent of the contribution towards the fund of DMF shall be deposited in fix deposit or government bond/ bank bond.
The interest earned on such amount to the extent of 90 per cent would be utilised for achieving the objectives.
"The balance 10 per cent of such interest shall be re-invested in long-term investment so that the corpus of such fund remains permanently enhanced, surpassing the period of exploitation of mineral ore, and such fund shall be used in posterity for the benefit and protecting the rights of the future generations and creating inter-generational equity," DMG Director Prasanna Acharya said.

The DMF was introduced after the Centre amended the MMDR (Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation) Act.