Central Coordination -Cum- Empowered Committee Reviewed Position of Mineral Concession Regime in the Country

The quarterly meeting of the Central Coordination-cum¬-Empowered Committee (CEC) on monitoring and minimizing delays in grant of approvals for mineral concessions was held under the chairmanship of Shri S. Vijay Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Mines.

The Committee reviewed the position regarding various important aspects of the mineral concession regime in the country, and took decisions aimed at bringing about more efficiency and transparency in the system. Some of the important issues that came up for discussions and review in the meeting were: action taken to curb illegal mining including use of satellite imagery; improving monitoring of the mineral system through a State Empowered Committee and District level Task Forces; plugging loopholes in the royalty collection system; strengthening governance by gearing up the State Mining Directorates; expediting approval including forest clearance cases to clear long pending mineral concession applications.

Major decisions taken included:

(i) Action Plan to be prepared to increase capacity of State Mining Directorates.

(ii) End-to-end accounting system for mineral transaction to prevent and detect illegal mining through an All Indian Online System.

(iii) Ensuring proper exploration in leasehold areas in a time-bound way to enable execution of Mining Plans in a scientific manner.

Presentations were also made by (i) M/s Ernest & Young on Mining Tenement System; (ii) by M/s E-Connect Solution Pvt. Ltd., Udaipur, on the Online Management System developed by them for the Government of Rajasthan; and (iii) by the Ministry of Environment and Forests on their new software on forest clearance that is proposed to be launched shortly.

Representatives of various Central Ministries/Departments concerned with the subject, viz. Environment and Forests, Defence, Civil Aviation, Steel, Revenue, Railways, Shipping and Fertilizer attended the meeting. The Governments of all mineral-rich States, viz. Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu also participated in the meeting.