KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Fearing delays in holding fresh auctions of 288 mining leases slated to expire in March next year, the Indian mining industry has sought a ten-year extension of leases for these mines until 2030.

The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), in a presentation to the government, has said that the industry is staring at a crisis, as fresh auctions for the expiring mining leases before the March 2020 deadline seem a distinct possibility.

The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act (MMDRA) 2015 made auction mandatory for the allocation of mining leases and all mining leases allocated prior to the Act, and up for renewal after promulgation of the Act, would need to go through fresh auctions.

The National Institute for Transformation of India Commission last month set up a committee on mines, minerals and coal to look into current challenges facing the sector and immediate measures to mitigate them and the FIMI representation was against the backdrop of such an initiative.

FIMI pointed out that until the promulgation of the MMDRA, there had been no distinction between captive and noncaptive mines and both were treated the same, including tenures of mining leases. Hence, mining in captive or noncaptive mines, private or government, should be treated the same under the MMDRA, with noncaptive mine leases also granted extensions as in the case of captive mines.

It suggested that in the first phase all mining leases slated to expire next year should be extended for a period of ten years and thereafter renewed every 20 years until reserves in each mine were exhausted to prevent any risk of disruptions in raw material supplies to downstream production units.

The Mines Ministry last year had set a deadline of December 2018 for all state governments to complete fresh exploration of mineral blocks where mining leases were to expire in 2020, but this deadline has been missed by most state governments.

According to information from the government only 101 mineral blocks of the 288 were ready to be put up for auction with exploration completed in these blocks. The highest number of mining leases up for expiry are in Goa (184), followed by Karnataka (48) and Odisha (17).