KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - Close on the heels of the India’s Supreme Court lifting a ban on mining in Goa, the provincial government is working on a new mining policy to be ready by June, and aims to get operations back on the rails by September.

The new mining policy would include the auction of leases in lieu of those rendered illegal by the court order, and recovery of penalties for ore mined after the expiry of a lease and for mining beyond permissible limits.

The Indian apex court of Monday lifted the 18-month ban on iron-ore mining in the western coastal province of Goa, paving the way for resumption of extraction subject to an annual production cap of 20-million tonnes.

The Supreme Court order also stated that mining by leaseholders after November 2007 was illegal, rendering virtually all mines illegal.

The proposed policy would also have to tackle the issue of the legal ownership of the ore, which was extracted and mostly exported during the period 2007 and 2012, since the court order implied that ore extracted illegally during this period was state property.

The issue of ownership of the extracted ore would have to be settled through the imposition of an appropriate penalty on the miner and the state compensated for the ore mined, which was state property, officials said.

Government officials said that in the wake of such a directive, the proposed mining policy would frame rules for the issue of new leases in lieu of the cancelled leases and the auction route would be adopted.

Since annual production had been capped, the government would frame the rules for new mining permits in such a way as to avoid any breach of the ceiling. It was estimated that the government would be able to grant 35 new leases across areas of less than 50 ha to ensure the participation of comparatively smaller mining operations and adhere to the 20-million-tonne-a-year overall ceiling.

However, it was extremely unlikely that 32 mines would resume operations since the court had ordered no mining operations within a 1 km buffer zone around national parks and sanctuaries, officials said.

Last year, the Goa government cancelled 250 mining leases of leaseholders that had failed to prove that they had applied for the renewal of first leases, failed to renew leases at all, or failed to prove the leases were in operation during November 1987 and November 2007.