India aims to bridge gap between granted leases and operational mines
KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – After laying out a new policy environment for mining, India’s Mines Ministry has launched second-generation reforms aimed at bridging the gap between the number of mining leases granted and operational mines.
Currently, 3 884 mining leases have been granted, but only 1 800 mines are operational.
Having set out a new policy regime under the National Mineral Policy and National Mineral Exploration Policy over the past year, the government has now come to the view that dealing with supply-side aspects and boosting production, despite depressed commodity markets, will be key to achieving government-stated goals involving the industry.
A senior official in the Ministry said that getting more mines operational was imperative if government’s stated objectives of increasing mineral production by 2.5 times and doubling its contribution to gross domestic product to 2% were to be achieved.
Following a recent review, the Ministry concluded that the big gap between the capacity visible in sanctioned mining plans and current production levels had to be bridged to reach fuller capacity utilisation.
Government's next step would include identification and execution of blocks obtained through auctions, expediting mandatory clearances required from provincial and federal governments and reducting gestation periods through adoption of improved technologies, the official said.
However, acknowledging that mine output was a factor of infrastructure growth and industrial production increases along with commodity price cycles, the Ministry has maintained that developing such an efficient mining ecosystem and higher production levels could not be activities earmarked only for an upturn in commodity cycles.
Picking up a cue, one of the country’s largest industry associations, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), stated in a recent report on the mining sector that India could add $70-billion to the economy by 2030 and generate an additional six-million jobs if government were to foster a more conducive business environment.
The CII report said, “Presently, the process of obtaining approvals and clearances still remains long drawn and varies from state to state. This requires [simplification] so that the time required for operationalisation of the mineral concession can be drastically reduced.”
Some of the measures enunciated by CII included finalisation of specific timelines for each approval process step, without modifying the overall stipulated time in the notification; finalise responsibilities and accountability at each process step, wherever not defined at present; and work on digitising the approval process for enabling integrated online communication between central, state and district authorities. In fact, concerned by the piling up of pending mining leases, the Mines Ministry last month wrote to provincial governments seeking expeditious clearances of the same.
There are 317 mining licences across 12 mineral-rich states pending. These licences fall under the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act 2015 and if not processed by January 11, 2017, will automatically lapse.
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