By Anurjay Dhal
BHUBANESWAR: Sajjan Jindal, who heads the JSW Steel, that got 4 huge Iron Ore and Manganese mining blocks in Odisha’s Joda-Koira regions of Keonjhar-Sundargarh mining belt in the last mining auction following reforms in mining sector, on Tuesday said Deletion of 10A-2B will end the old era in which Miners were making windfall profit at the behest of policy inefficiencies. A level playing field for the industry is a must and this reform does exactly that, he added.
In a series of tweets while tagging both Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) and well as Union Mines, Coal and Parliamentary Affairs, Minister, Pralhad Joshi, JSW Steel chairman said “The latest MMDR amendment is a fantastic step to bring down corruption in the #Mining sector and to bring in a cleaner, more transparent process. @JoshiPralhad@PMOIndia,”.
“There are over 500 mines in our country which are under litigation and are therefore not operational. This amendment cleans the slate for fresh auctions which will give a multifold growth to revenue of the state governments. @JoshiPralhad,” JSW Chairman, Sajjan Jindal tweeted@sajjanjindal.
“Deletion of 10A-2B will end the old era in which Miners were making windfall profit at the behest of policy inefficiencies. A level playing field for the industry is a must and this reform does exactly that. @JoshiPralhad@PMOIndia,” JSW Steel Chief said in another tweet.
“Various policy hurdles have been haunting the development of India’s #Mining sector. These reforms will help the State Government in realizing the true potential of mineral resources by way of increased revenue and huge employment opportunities. One major pain point of the industry addressed by this amendment is the transfer of all clearances. Old reforms required the new owner of the existing operational mine to take all statutory clearances again for the same lease. It was a waste of time & resources. #Mining,’’ Sajjan Jindal tweeted.
“The abnormal returns being made by the mining companies will now go to the state exchequers through a transparent process. Obviously, some people will be unhappy about it! I laud the efforts of GOI in eliminating #corruption from the mining sector.@PMOIndia@JoshiPralhad,”he added.
JSW had won 4 major blocks earlier held by KJS Ahluwalia Group and Rungta Mines Ltd Group– Nuagaon (won on January 31, 2020),Narayanposhi ( won on February 2, 2020) and Ganua ( won on February 5,2020) and Jajang ( won January 6,2020) – with total ore reserve of 1,138.34 million tonnes. With the 4 Mines, an iron ore reserves linkage of more than 1,100 million tonnes has been secured for JSW Steel of Sajjan Jindal.
Earlier, Section 10A (2) (b) allowed an entity to acquire a mining lease for the mines allotted prior to auction regime without any sunset clause and 10A (2) (c) allowed an entity to get the environment and forest clearance within 2 years of the auction of mines.
People having close watch on Odisha’s Mining and Industry issues, however revealed that the provision of section 10(A)2 B and C was inserted in MMDR Amendment Act 2015 to safe guard the interest of ML/PL holders whose cases were pending with different State Government at that time .
These applications were filed long back as per the prevalent act as applicable in that time. Due to crawling process of government machineries these applications could not be converted in to mining leases in time bound manner. When some massive changes took place on January 12, 2015, the interest of these cases were well safeguarded by bringing the provisions of 10 A2B and 2 C. Though there was a time limit of 2 years in case of 10 A 2C but no time line was fixed in case of 10 A 2B, they said.
Different state govt kept pending all cases of 10 A 2 B for almost 5 years and no conclusive decision was taken over these cases. Now by just one stroke of pen all these cases will be scraped. In these last 5 years, government kept a blindfold over these cases, which is why the cases couldn’t be processed timely. If Central govt didn’t want to allot these cases on mere royalty basis then why government kept these cases in saving clause under 10 A2 B in MMDR Act 2015.Those applicants have put lot of money, time and efforts to keep their respective cases alive and waited for almost 5 years after enactment of amended act, they argued.
The captive mining leases coming under 8A5 category were extended by almost 15 years ie upto 31.03.2030 mainly belonging to Tatas . Now early termination of the captive mines and scraping the provisions of right of first refusal creates lot of doubt at this stage, one of the Koira , Sundargarh based Mines owner said .
Meanwhile, earlier, soon after the Parliament passing Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2021, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines and BJP Lawmaker from Karnataka’s Dharwad constituency, Pralhad Joshi on Monday said that these reforms will make mineral mining sustainable and drive economic activities in the country.
“With the Parliament passing Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2021, stage is set for big-bang reforms in the mining sector. These reforms will make mineral mining sustainable and drive economic activities in the country.#Mineral Reforms,”Union Minister Pralhad Joshi tweeted @JoshiPralhad.
“With its passage in Rajya Sabha, Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2021 stands passed by both Houses of Parliament. It is a step towards attaining mineral security of the nation. I thank all Members who voted in favour of the Bill. #MineralReforms,” Joshi said in another tweet.
“We want to bring private players into this because we have rich minerals like coal, gold, silver, but we are not being able to bring it out. That’s why we are bringing these changes and trying to redefine exploration,” Union mines minister Pralhad Joshi said in Parliament.
Assuring members in Rajya Sabha, Joshi said the “progressive” bill will not curb the powers of states while creating more jobs. “I assure you that not a single iota of power of the states will be snatched or taken away by this bill.” Joshi also responded to the opposition’s call for a select committee probe on the bill.
“Wide consultations on the bill were held. The bill was circulated to states and 10,500 comments were received. As many as 10 associations and six NGOs had recorded their comments,” the minister said. “As many as 143 mines have been given to states. Since 2015, these mines are with them. Neither those were allotted nor auctioned. Who suffered the loss? We are importing coal despite having the 4th largest resource of coal,” Joshi stated.
