The Bill is to go before the Cabinet for approval before its introduction in Parliament before its Winter Session ends on December 23. It also makes illegal mining of the notified minerals, including iron and bauxite ore, as a cognizable offence while putting the deep-seated or difficult to access minerals in the category of the non-notified minerals. It empowers the state governments to set up special courts for trial of offences of illegal mining.
Sources in the Ministry of Mines said the new Bill is silent on the key provision of the lapsed MMDR Bill of 2011 that had sought to earmark 26 per cent of profit of coal mining companies to be shared with the people affected by the mining operations.
Instead, it has a novel idea of constitution of the district mineral foundation (DMF) in each district affected by mining to help the affected people and rebuild the infrastructure from the funds to be raised through additional levy on royalty.
Given the state of current knowledge about the notified minerals, the Bill says there is no need to issue any reconnaissance permits (RP) or prospecting licences (PLs) for such minerals.
However, it seeks to grant a combined PL-cum-ML for the non-notified minerals through a competitive bidding that envisages that the bidder will conduct exploration and prospecting work at his own risk and cost, but he will have to abide by production share or a royalty-based payment in case of any find.
