Govt puts in place timelines to expedite ops of auctioned mineral blocks

The government on Sunday said it has amended the Mineral (Auction) Rules, 2015 to introduce timelines for different activities after the auction of mineral blocks to expedite their operations.

The amendment has put in place milestones between the issuance of the letter of intent and the execution of mining leases, with imposing of penalties for delays and giving incentives for early production.

The move aims at improving monitoring across the stages of mine development and preventing bidders from sitting on the blocks without beginning the operations.

"As the latest step in its endeavour to fast-track operationalisation, the Ministry of Mines has notified amendment to the Mineral (Auction) Rules, 2015 on October 17, 2025 introducing intermediary timelines for various activities to be completed after issue of Letter of Intent till execution of mining lease," an official statement said.

Under the amended rules, approval of the mining plan should happen within six months, environmental clearance should be sought within 18 months, and execution of the mining lease should happen within 12 months thereafter.

For composite licence (CL) auctions, two additional milestones -- execution of the CL within 12 months and completion of at least G2-level prospecting within 36 months -- have been prescribed.

A delay beyond the prescribed timelines will attract appropriation of bank guarantee of the bidder to the extent of one per cent for delay of each month or a part of month.

In case of auction of mining lease (ML), only 50 per cent of the premium will be payable for the quantity of mineral dispatched earlier than five years from the date of issue of Letter of Intent (LoI).

In case of auction of CL, incentive for early production will be applicable on the quantity of mineral dispatched earlier than seven years from the date of LoI for CL.

Since the auction regime began in 2015, a total of 585 major mineral blocks have been auctioned, which include 34 critical mineral resources.

Initially the pace of auction was slow, however, for the past three years, on average over 100 mineral blocks are being auctioned. During the current year, 112 mineral blocks have been auctioned in the first seven months.