The Department of Law issues the Mineral Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 which aims at amending Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 and to amend the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015.
The key changes in the ordinance are as follows:
• Allocation of coal or lignite blocks for composite prospecting licence cum mining lease.
• Requirement of previous approval in cases where allocation of blocks was made by Central Govt has been dispensed with.
• This would speed up the process of implementation of projects, ease of doing business, simplification of procedure and benefit all the parties in areas where minerals are located.
• Removal of end-use restrictions on minerals: The Coal Mines Act prescribed certain mines as Schedule II and Schedule III coal mines, in respect of which, only companies engaged in a ‘specific end use’ were considered eligible to bid in the auction of Mining Concessions. This eligibility restriction has now been removed. However, the Central Government, under the Coal Mines Act, still retains the right to prescribe end-use restrictions for coal mines.
• Use of coal in holding or subsidiary company: The Coal Mines Act permitted use of coal in the allottee’s plants engaged in common specified end-use. This has been expanded to include use of coal in the plants of the subsidiary/holding company of the allottees as well.
[Notification no 10/5/2020-LA-64]
