The Confederation of Indian Industry has urged the Ministry of Mines to declare mining as a strategic and infrastructure sector, critical for the nation’s manufacturing growth, creating employment, preventing drain of valuable forex and propelling growth in some of the most backward states.

The CII, which submitted a copy of ‘Agenda for Mining sector’, said critical steps that can be taken with immediate effect, without requiring legislative changes, and can make a significant improvement in investment sentiment include:

Allow for transferability of licences by provisioning for the creation of a market for licenses through adequate price discovery.

Create for seamlessness in licensing from one mining stage to another.

Auction fully explored ore bodies only.

Reduce GSI’s role as an explorer and focus their activities in creating an environment which attracts exploration activity.

Reduce delays in renewal of leases: A lessee is assessed by the Indian Bureau of Mines over the entire period of the lease and therefore in case of IBM certifying that it is in the interest of mineral development to renew the lease, the renewal should be automatic.

“In the event the state governments do not communicate renewal within one year from the expiry of the lease then it should be construed as deemed approval,” CII requested.

“We believe that capacity building within the state machinery should be expedited so that ‘deemed’ approvals do not have to be resorted to; instead the approval process should be such that time bound renewals can take place,” the CII further added.

With regard to the proposed changes in fiscal imposts, the CII has urged the ministry that the Indian mining sector is one of the most heavily taxed in the world. Therefore, any attempts to levy further imposts must take that into account.

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