Indian government has amended mining regulations permitting companies with captive mineral, non-fuel mines to sell 50 percent of its annual production in the open market, government officials said on Tuesday, November 16.
They said that the relaxations of the regulation will increase flow of critical minerals like iron ore, limestone, dolomite in open market and increase availability of inputs to companies without any captive raw material assets.
“Though companies with captive mines will have to fork out certain charges to the state government for selling up to half of their annual production in the open market, the move will certainly improve the availability and boost India’s manufacturing capability,” an official with Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), representative body of private miners said.
In a second amendment to mining regulations, the government has also allowed partial surrender of a mining lease. Earlier, if the lessee wanted to transfer the lease, it had to surrender the entire lease. Also, the interest rate for delayed payments of royalty and penalty has now been halved to 12 percent from 24 percent.