KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - The Mining Engineers Association of India (MEAI) has appealed to the government to relax rules for beach sand mineral mining to allow for increased exploration for six minerals found along the country’s coastline.

According to the association, it takes eight to nine years to get a lease to mine beach sands as well as a host of clearances from multiple agencies such as the Department of Atomic Energy, the Coastal Regulatory Zone - for an environment clearance - and the provincial governments.

The MEAI said that a time-bound granting of mining leases could fast-track India to global leader status in the mining of at least five beach sand minerals.

Beach sand minerals comprised ilmenite, rutile, zircon, garnet, monazite and sillimanite and of these the Indian government does not permit private sector participation in the mining of monazite, the primary source of thorium, which was considered strategic by the government.

According to the MEAI, Indian ilmenite resources constitute 35% of the global resource, while over 70% of the global resource of monazite was in India, which indicated untapped potential.

It also rued the fact that, in recent months, beach sand mining had been confused with the illegal mining of sand in coastal regions and river beds, which had resulted in a blanket ban on all kinds of beach sand mining, which was proving detrimental to the growth of mineral mining along the coast.

Although the Indian government had framed a beach sand mining policy in 1998, not much progress had been made under the policy and the industry had not reached its full potential, the association said.

Local activists had been protesting in recent months against illegal mining of beaches in the Tuticorin, Tirunelvelli and Kanyakumari districts in the southern Indian province of Tamil Nadu. According to a complaint lodged with the administration, 230 000 t of beach sand had been mined illegally in just one village and activists had written to the provincial and federal governments alleging that $14-billion worth of beach sand had been exported illegally through false declaration of thorium content in the monazite.

Thorium has to be separated from monazite through processing and government regulations only permitted export of monazite with a thorium content of less than 25%.

The National Green Tribunal has imposed a ban on beach sand mining along the entire coastline but the Supreme Court had taken a stand against the 100% ban on such mining.

MEAI said that the controversies over illegal mining, and the absence of effective monitoring and policy were negatives impacting on the legitimate growth of and exploration for heavy minerals in the country.