Bhubaneswar : The Odisha government is all set to give another headache to the miners after the recent stamp duty issue.
In an important development, the state government on Saturday has decided to collect equal amount of royalty from the miners for the development of the area around the mines.
The money will go into the District Peripherial Development Fund for social, economic, health & educational improvement including livelihood promotion of the Tribal people living in the mine bearing scheduled areas of the state.
This was decided in the Tribal Advisory Council (TAC) meeting headed by the Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik.
To enforce this, the TAC has approved the Draft Odisha (Scheduled Areas) Development of Mine Bearing Area Regulation 2013.
The state government is collecting 10% Royalty of ad-valorem prices from the miners on minerals like iron ore and chromite.
If the decision is implemented, the miners have to pay another 10%.
Significantly, if the central government increases mineral Royalty to (say) 15%, the miners have to pay extra 15% for the development fund.
According to experts, in a bearish mineral market, this is going to hit hard to the miners and the mineral industry.
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