By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 13, 2019: Industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci) has sought the union government’s approval for captive mine lessees to sell inferior grades of minerals, saying it will reduce waste at mines.By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 13, 2019: Industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci) has sought the union government’s approval for captive mine lessees to sell inferior grades of minerals, saying it will reduce waste at mines.

“Captive miners are restricted to dispose or sell low grade minerals not usable for end use plant associated with the mines, thereby, locking mineralised land and preventing zero waste mining. Currently, according to the Mineral Transfer Rules, captive mining implies 100 per cent usage of the mineral mined from captive mines to own plants”, Ficci said in a presentation to the NITI Aayog.

Ficci justifies its demand by saying that baser grade ore could not be used in the mother plants or the downstream units. Such lower grade ore and rejects can be disposed of. However, existing rules forbid captive miners from selling rejects, sub-grade or low-grade ores that are not usable for downstream processes, leading to a loss of revenues for the government.

Besides, environmental de-gradation due to dumping of such material is also a concern for mineral conservation. In certain mining leases (ML), there are both major and minor minerals in the same ML which are being treated differently by the state government leading to operational issues.

The National Mineral Policy 2019 emphasizes on zero waste mining and the captive miners have called for an amendment in Mineral Concession Rules 1960 to facilitate sale of sub-grade minerals to other industries. If an ML consists of both major and minor minerals, then the same should be considered as Major Mineral ML and all matters should be dealt as such, miners say.