Construction Mirror Article detail

Recently, the government said that 214 mineral blocks have been put on sale since 2015. The number of blocks put on sale per year has gone up three times since amendments were made to the regulations last year. As compared to the auction of 108 mineral blocks in six years from 2015 to 2021, 106 blocks have been put on sale in one-and-half years since April 2021, the mines ministry said in a statement."Although the number of working auctioned mines is miniscule (36) in comparison to working non-auctioned mines (405), the premium collection from auctioned mines is surpassing the royalty collection from all the working mines," the statement said. For FY'22, the total auction premium from the auctioned mines was Rs 21,148.04 crore in three states, including Odisha, and Karnataka, compared to Rs 21,267.64 crore from the royalty of all the working mines. The same trend could be seen for the current financial year also, the statement said. The National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) was set up to provide required financial assistance to mineral exploration in the country.Till July 2022, Rs 1,809.42 crore has been approved for various projects and Rs 477.16 crore has been spent from NMET fund for various exploration activities. In FY22 alone, an amount of Rs 751.43 crore was approved and Rs 124.71 crore was spent in exploration of mineral resources. Till September, Rs 70,107 crore has been collected in District Mineral Foundations (DMFs) and 2,52,995 projects worth Rs 63,534 crore have been sanctioned for various activities for welfare of persons and areas affected by mining related operations, as per the statement.