The Indian government is considering a proposal to charge a lower royalty rate for low grade iron ore mined by local steel producers if they undertake beneficiation, government sources said on Monday, November 24.
The sources said that the government is working on a proposal to charge five percent of the average selling price as royalty if low grade iron ore with Fe content less than 58 percent is beneficiated to 62 percent Fe content. Currently, there is only one royalty rate of 15 percent of the average selling price.
This lower royalty rate to be charged if ore is beneficiated was recommended by a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Steel and Coal which maintained that such an incentive would not only conserve the limited high-grade ore but also make it possible for optimum utilisation of the available rejects, thereby reducing the burden of stacking tailings and rejects kept for disposal, the sources said.
