The Hindu Business Line : ‘Iron ore exports issue not part of national mineral policy’

New Delhi, Dec. 20 The contentious issue of iron ore exports will not be a part of the National Mineral Policy (NMP) as the Mines Ministry has put the onus on the Finance and Commerce Ministries to decide on the issue.

“The issue of exports is not part of the NMP as was raised by the Chief Ministers of the five States during their meeting with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Wednesday. It is a totally separate issue which would be decided by the Finance and Commerce Ministries along with the Prime Minister’s Office,” the Minister of State for Mines, Mr T. Subbarami Reddy, told Business Line on Thursday.

The Chief Ministers of five mineral-rich States — Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — in a memorandum to the Prime Minister have said, “We strongly advocate that the export of minerals should be phased out since minerals are non-renewable and finite resources.”

But the Anwar-ul-Hoda Committee in its report on the NMP had favoured doing away with quantitative restrictions on iron ore exports, a view echoed by Mr Reddy.

Mr Reddy also said that issues of passing on the cess collected from mining activities and constitution of a taskforce for finalising the amendments to the Act were not part of the policy.

“We have told them that these issues will be looked into afterwards as they are not part of the NMP,” he added.

According to Mr Reddy, even the demand that the States be compensated for the use of minerals through an automatic ad-valorem based royalty structure, has been accepted. “The States wanted the ad-valorem to be about 20 per cent, but we have said that the percentage could be fixed after discussions between the representatives of the States and officials from the Mines Ministry. The mechanism is already in place,” Mr Reddy said.

According to him, the only new point that the States have raised during the meeting was regarding the foreign direct investment (FDI) for large scale prospecting of bauxite, iron ore and chromite as a lot of local entrepreneurs are undertaking operations of these minerals. “We have taken note of this issue and have assured them that their concerns on the issue would be addressed,” Mr Reddy said.

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