TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Union government will make online reporting of ore mining and exports mandatory from April 1st, Union government officials said.
However, manual reporting would also continue initially for a period of six months to facilitate smooth transition from manual to on-line reporting.
Ranjan Sahai, from Indian Bureau of Mines, informed the CEC Committee at its recently held meeting that the system developed for online reporting was found to “be robust in terms of hardware, software, security, and format.
And since there were no objections from the state representatives present at the meeting to this system, Additional Secretary (Mines) said that “the Ministry will go ahead with the decision for making online reporting mandatory w.e.f. 1.4.2014. However, it was decided that manual reporting would also continue initially for a period of six months to facilitate a smooth transition from manual to on-line reporting,” minutes of the meeting state.
The CEC meeting also in principle decided to adopt e-auction for iron ore and has asked all state governments to submit their comments or views on the concept of introducing the method of e-auction which will enable realizing fair value for computation of royalty.
After Karnataka, e-auction method has been adopted in Goa following SC directives. In Goa, the first e-auction will take place in February.
On minor minerals, Union government wanted the views of the State Governments be sought if an appeal against the order of the NGT dated 28.11.2013 is made. The NGT had said that according to central law, environmental clearance (EC) can be granted only by MoEF and State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA).
A suggestion was also made to ask if the Supreme Court should be approached to seek clarity on whether obtaining Environmental Clearance (EC) for mining of minor minerals in areas less than 5 hectares was only a transitory provision pending finalization of framing of Rules for minor minerals by States or seeking ECs was a permanent obligation. States were requested to expedite their comments on the draft ‘Model Guidelines on Mining of Minor Minerals’ which were circulated for suggestions so as to enable the Ministry to finalise the model guidelines.
After representative from Madhya Pradesh informed the committee about the problems faced in granting permissions for mining minor minerals, Additional Secretary (Mines) suggested that MoEF should be asked to explore the possibility of having SEIAAs at the district or zonal level so as to clear pendency and inordinate delay in clearing cases.
Secretary (Mines) also wanted that the issue needs to be taken up with MoEF and that the views of the State Governments should be sought in going for an appeal against the order of the NGT dated 28.11.2013.
