Date | Sept 26, 2016:

India’s ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) has ruled out granting environment clearance (EC) for around 200 mining leases where licences were granted before the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Amendment Act, 2015 (MMDR) came into effect.

These are leases which were issued by the state governments before the MMDR Act was amended in January 2015. The Act allowed for grant of mineral concessions through auctions to bring transparency and remove discretion.

An opinion may be sought from the department of legal affairs on the vexed issue.

“Under the provisions of the environment protection Act (EPA) and rules thereof, there is no prospect of granting any sort of general or conditional or provisional EC by the environment division for disposal of mining leases where prospecting licences or reconnaissance permits were issued before MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2015 came into force,” according to the minutes of a 20 September meeting available on website of the ministry of mines.

Currently, mining contributes around 2-2.5% to India’s gross domestic product (GDP) with the government projecting a GDP growth of 7-7.75% for the current financial year. The government wants to increase the share of mining sector in the country’s GDP by one percentage point over the next three to four years.

There are around 200 pending cases pertaining to section 10A(2)(c) of the MMDR Act where the last date of execution of lease deed is January 2017.

Section 10A(2)(c) states, “If a letter of intent (by whatever name called) has been issued by the state government to grant a mining lease, before the commencement of the MMDR, 2015, the mining lease shall be granted subject to fulfilment of the conditions of the previous approval or of the letter of intent within a period of two years from the date of commencement of the said Act.”

InfraCircle reported on 27 June about the government plans to cancel leases pending with various state governments and auction them.

A senior MoEFCC official, requesting anonymity, said, “It will not be possible to give general clearance for facilitating lease execution in such cases under the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act.”

“The complications arising from the possibility of mutation of the forest land by the lessee in his favour, would entail that the lessee is free to utilise the land which is falling under the forest limitations for non-forest activities and the very purpose of need for forest clearance would stand defeated,” the official added.

Meanwhile, the mines ministry plans to meet the state government representatives on 27 September to expedite the pending mining lease cases under section 10A(2)(c) of the MMDR Act.

Queries emailed to the spokespersons of the mines ministry and department of legal affairs on 23 September remained unanswered.

Experts are of the opinion that these mining leases may be auctioned as clearances are still not in place.

“For all these pending mining leases, there was a condition precedent that all necessary approvals will be required before a cut-off date of January 2017. Amidst the current circumstances, the most likely scenario is that all these leases will go under auction,’ said Dipesh Dipu, partner at Jenissi Management Consultants, a Hyderabad-based energy and resources consulting firm.

(Source: http://www.vccircle.com/)