A high-level committee has been set up by Niti Aayog on mines, minerals and coal sectors to identify key challenges and negate their impact. The committee includes officials from steel, coal and mines ministry, public sector mining companies, with representation from the private sector.

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In FY18 India’s import bill was at $465 billion of which $ 126 billion or 27% of FY18 import bill was on account of metals and minerals alone.

Inadequate exploration, need for investment to increase exploration activities, high incidences of taxes, increase in taxes, mining royalty, license fee and the environment and forest clearances remain a big hurdle for the mining sector in the country.

Now, private players have suggested single stage auction for unexplored Greenfield sites on the basis of expression of interest (EoI) for complete exploration and operation plan on revenue sharing basis like it happens in the oil and gas sector under OALP or Open acreage licensing policy.

The industry has also demanded a reduction in the timeline for environment and forest clearances from 840 days to 180 days and complete removal of the cap on mining in India.

Coal imports have risen 9% in FY19 to 234 million tonnes. The coal ministry has suggested bringing in coal linkage for the steel sector for a period of 15 years.

The steel ministry has suggested single stage bid to reduce the impact of very high premium payment in multiple state auction, and has suggested removal of royalty review every 3 years, and need to bring in the unified tax regime to negate cumulative cost on steelmakers.

Industry experts say mining contributes about 2 percent to India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and has the potential to increase it to 10 percent, directly and indirectly with the creation of 2.5 million jobs in the next 5 years.

First Published:Apr 26, 2019 2:14 PM IST