4th National Conclave on Mines & Minerals was organized by Ministry of Mines on 13th July 2018 at Indore, Madhya Pradesh. FIMI, State Mining ministers, officials of central ministries including Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), officials of the state government, CEOs of mining industries, industry associations and others participated in the conclave.
Union Minister of Mines and Union Minister of State for Mines were present at the conclave, state Mining Ministers, CEO NITI Aayog and Union Steel and Ispat Secretary. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shri Shivraj Singh Chauhan was the chief guest of the conclave.
The conclave was organized to discuss the difficulties faced by the miners and attract them to invest in the states. All the mineral-rich states representatives like Rajasthan, Karnataka, A.P, M.P, Assam, and C.G took part to let the investors know about the upcoming auction of mineral blocks and amenities provided by the states in the year 2018. They have also ensured the investors about early clearances under ease of doing business.
Key highlights of the conclave were as follows:
1. Indian iron ore production crossed 200 MnT – Indian iron ore production in FY18 was recorded at 200.95 MnT up by 5% against 192.08 in previous fiscal.
2. List of iron ore blocks under auction –Total 102 mineral blocks will be put up for auction in FY19, out of which 8 are iron ore & manganese ore and 6 are iron ore blocks. The state-wise distribution is as follows: Karnataka – 08; Odisha -03; Jharkhand -02 and Maharashtra – 01.
3. On 2020 block auction – In the conclave, there were discussions about 2020 auction when major merchant non-coal mines under 2nd renewal are due to expire. Officials ensured the delegates and investor about a smooth and successful transition of the lease ending in the year 2020. Govt officials said that the NITI Aayog, Ministry of Mines and PMO (Prime Minister Office) are keeping a close watch. In the further comment, they said they are looking the supply side will not get affected more than 15-20 days.
4. Royalty rationalization – Rationalization of the royalty was also part of the discussion in the conclave. Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma, emphasized to make the miners more comfortable to decide one lump sum amount instead of so many breakups like royalty, DMF, and NMET etc. They are in the discussion to merge and make it one lump sum amount in the process of ease of doing business. Officials were also concerned to get a guarantee from the miners about quantity and quality of minerals to give incessant supply to the steel industry. There is a strong request from the industry if this royalty can be included as a form of input and be part of the input cost. This is something we are working on. There is a case to merge everything and put an amount to it.
5. Ease out the process for obtaining clearances – On the issue of e-auction of mines, delegates were concerned to reduce bidding of mines and mining exploration time period. Because obtaining clearances from the Environment and Forest department takes a lot of time after bidding in the process of getting clearances. Therefore NITI Aayog’s CEO, Mr. Amitabh Kant suggested either to get first all the clearances-EC and FC and then bidding should be called or all the clearances should be done within three months time.
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