By Jatindra Dash, IANS
New Delhi : Five mineral-rich Indian states Wednesday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to constitute a task force to finalise the National Mineral Policy (NMP) 2007.
The chief ministers of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan met here at Orissa Bhawan and signed a joint memorandum, which they will submit to the prime minister.
Minerals, like land and water, are important resources for the states and their right to utilise this resource to leverage development of the respective states must not be compromised in any manner in the NMP, the memorandum says.
The mineral-rich states are also among the poorest states in the country and agriculture and mineral-based industries are the main economic activities in the mineral-bearing areas.
Therefore, value addition to minerals within the state should be one of the prime objectives of the NMP, the memorandum argues.
By following such a policy, these states can attract investments and reap the consequent benefits. This will be an important step towards redressing regional imbalances, the memorandum added.
The NMP must recognise the need for captive mining for industries located within a state to meet their raw material requirement, the chief ministers said.
The major concerns of the draft NMP seems to be to attract foreign direct investment in mining for large-scale prospecting, and access to improved technology in mining.
This seems to have necessitated the concepts of stand-alone mining activities, security of tenure along with transparency in the allocation of concessions, seamless transition from prospecting to mining, and an export policy favouring long-term export of minerals, they said.
This approach is fundamentally flawed in so far as bulk minerals such as iron ore, bauxite, chromite, limestone, dolomite, manganese and others are concerned, they said.
“It may result in a few multinational mining companies acquiring control over the vast mineral resources of the country that are essentially required for the domestic manufacturing industry for a global market.
“We oppose the concept of seamless transition from reconnaissance to prospecting to mining lease for bulk minerals. It would deny the states the opportunity to promote mineral-based industries within the state,” The memorandum says.
Export of minerals should be phased out since minerals are non-renewable and finite resources, the chief ministers have said.
The NMP should recognise the need for continuance of reservation for state public-sector undertakings for management and development of certain minerals of national importance and in the interest of equity and fair play, the chief ministers added.
They also demanded their states should be adequately compensated for use of the minerals through an automatic ad-valorem-based royalty structure and should not be left to the discretion of the central government. The export levy should be entirely passed onto the states, they said.
An ad-valorem tax is a tax based on the assessed value of real estate or personal property.
They also argued that in scheduled areas, at least five percent of the annual profit from mining should be set apart for socio-economic development of the tribal population.