KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – India’s Mines Ministry will introduce a star-rating system for mines from next month, to allow communities and environmental activists to assess how responsible mines are.

The star rating would be based on various indicators and parameters, including socioeconomic indicators, best practices and mines’ environmental impact.

Based on the rating accorded to mines, companies would be either rewarded or would be issued with a warning to take remedial measures within a specified timeframe.

“We have completed all the groundwork for giving effect to the star-rating system. Each miner would be give a star rating, the maximum being a five-star for achieving the highest score out of 100. It will be a self-certification system and upon failure to achieve a minimum score, the miner will be asked to take remedial measures,” Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar said.

He added that the rating system would provide a definite framework to ascertain capabilities of each mine’s operation within a sustainable development framework.

Although the process would be based on self-certification, it would be subject to audits. For example, each mining lease holder would submit information on predetermined parameters as per standardised templates, after which designated agencies would verify the information before the Indian Bureau of Mines awarded a star rating.

The designated verification agencies would be the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, the Indian School of Mines, the Indian Institute of Technologies at Kharagpur and Varanasi and mining departments of other Indian engineering colleges.

Mines Ministry officials said that the draft of the mining rating system had proposed that mines which failed to take remedial measures within a stipulated period would be closed down. While this provision would be kept in abeyance initially, the option of activating the provision remained open subject to the experience gained from mines’ rating.

As reported by Mining Weekly Online, several environmental activists and nongovernmental organisations have flayed the government for keeping minor minerals, such as sand and granite, outside the purview of the rating system, even though these largely unorganised sectors were among the biggest violators of environmental laws.