National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

(iii) Whether value addition should be insisted upon while granting concessions forilmenite;(iv) What should be the export policy for ilmenite?(v) Whether AMD should continue to give certification for monazite content ofexport consignments;(vi) What should be the arrangement for AERB licensing and the role of AERB andAMD in the disposal of tailings containing radioactive monazite?Shifting Titanium Bearing Minerals (Ilmenite, Rutile, and Leucoxene) to PartC of the First Schedule of the MMDR Act7.75 As regards shifting ilmenite, rutile, and leucoxene to Part C of the First Schedule, wemay look at the objective sought to be achieved by the move and then see whether thatobjective is served by the proposed shift. The DAE recognises that there is so much naturalwealth in the country that instead of keeping these minerals locked up efforts should be madeto encourage their exploitation for improved economic growth. Clearly, the delisting of theseminerals (from the list of Prescribed Substances) by the DAE is prompted by the need topromote their utilisation in civil industry. The realisation has dawned that since the strategicimportance of these minerals is not great, it would be in the national interest to de-list them sothat licensing under the Atomic Energy Act is done away with. Eliminating the licensingrequirement will result in the removal of an unnecessary irritant. Nevertheless, it is still feltnecessary to have some Central control over these minerals and hence it is proposed to shiftthem to Part C of the First Schedule so that they remain under the purview of the Ministry ofMines.7.76 As seen in Chapter 1 of this report, Part C minerals are being gradually reduced andhave decreased in number from 38 in 1986 to 10 in 2005. This is in line with the policy ofdelegating the maximum possible authority to the states to which the minerals belong.Approval of the Ministry of Mines is required under Section 5(1) of the MMDR Act beforeconcessions are granted in respect of these 10 minerals only. There is a demand from thestates to do away with Part C approvals altogether because it is another time-consumingprocedure to be followed by the applicant. As long as these were Prescribed Substances therewas sense in routing the applications to DAE through a single point, viz. the Ministry ofMines, so that the DAE did not have to deal with the states. Now that they are no longerPrescribed Substances and the need to delist them is mainly to enable their exploitation anduse by civil industry, the first reaction is that they should not remain in the First Schedule.However, the reason for retaining the power to approve the mining of Scheduled minerals173