Amendments to Mining Laws in India

The Indian government is set to propose amendments to the mining laws, primarily focusing on facilitating state funding for the acquisition of overseas critical mineral assets.

Key Proposal Details

• Amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act are expected to be presented in Parliament.
• The National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) will fund these acquisitions. The trust has a corpus of over ₹6,000 crore.
• The trust's name will include ‘development’ to reflect its expanded scope for exploration, acquisition, and development of critical mineral assets abroad.

Objectives and Benefits

• Boosting supply chains of critical minerals.
• Addressing availability issues of critical mineral raw materials.

Additional Provisions

• Allowing disposal of mineral dumps via lump sum sale from captive mines, addressing the issue of unusable low-grade minerals.
• Empowering states to permit the sale of mineral dumps in leased areas upon an additional payment.

Regulatory Simplification

• Inclusion of newly discovered minerals and contiguous areas into existing mining leases for a fee.
• Leaseholders of deep-seated mineral resources may apply for a one-time extension of up to 10% of the existing leased area.