Mineral Concession Rules 2021 to usher (4th Amendment)
In order to facilitate ease of doing business in the domestic mineral sector, the Center has amended the Mineral Concession Rules, 2016 in a notification.
This includes some of the following major changes:
- Allowing partial surrender of mines.
- Allowing captive mines to sell up to 50% of minerals
- Minerals produced from captive mines are for the exclusive use of the mine holding company.
- Easy transfer of mines without any charges.
- The penalty for delayed payment of royalty has been reduced to 12% from the earlier 24%.
- The lessee will pay the additional amount as royalty to the state government.
Importance of amendment:
- Ensuring better availability of minerals in the open market
- This will eliminate a lot of pressure on production and pricing.
- All major minerals are part of this amendment. Thus, other minerals including iron ore, bauxite, limestone, zinc and manganese will also benefit.
- About 90% of the limestone mines are for captive mining, thus the cement industry will also benefit immensely.
Source- The Hindu
