04/07/2019 - Geography | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 6 years

KEY POINTS

India has a variety of mineral reserves like uranium reserves of Jharkhand, copper mines of Khetri, coal mines in Jharia, monazite reservers in east and west coastal plains of India.

Problems with mining industry in India

· Extraction and management of minerals must be integrated into the overall industrial strategy. But India’s imports of non-fuel minerals are much higher than exports.

· Small-sized mines dominate the industry. Mining in India is largely public-sector-driven, with public enterprises accounting for around 66% of the value of mineral production.

· There is a need to create an independent mining regulatory authority for oversight at the central and state level to restore investor confidence.

· The lack of resources with public sector agencies such as the Geological Survey of India, Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd, and other state and central agencies resulted in limited promotional exploration.

· Then the National Mineral Exploration Policy came in 2016, which is a structured framework for comprehensive exploration in the country with a judicious interplay of government support and private innovation and enterprise.

· There have been repeated violations by existing mining companies (Indian and foreign), as well as governments, of social and environmental impact assessment guidelines.

· Data from the Geological Survey of India’s geological mapping should be available in a geographic information system format to facilitate entrepreneurs to take investment decisions for exploration.

· The Indian Bureau of Mines and the State Directorates of Mining need to have the capacity to undertake mineral resource estimate and reserve valuations. This requires their capacity-building.

· Scientific human resources including knowledge at the frontiers of geoscience has emerged as a bottleneck. India will need more mining engineers, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists and geo-information experts.

· Past mining operations had not given much attention to rehabilitation of people uprooted by mining, the MMDR Act 2015 provides for the creation of a District Mineral Foundation in every district affected by mining-related operations to work for the benefit of persons and areas affected by such operations.

· These foundations should deliver on rehabilitation of old mines as well as affected peoples.