National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

investment. The work done by GSI continued to be the main basis for investment in mining.In India, GSI is mainly charged with the task of regional exploration and there is no otheragency doing this work in a substantive way. However, due to lack of resources in terms ofmanpower, equipment, and technology, GSI has not been able to do either extensive orintensive regional exploration for most minerals other than coal. For doing detailedexploration, there is also only one Central PSU, namely the Mineral Exploration CorporationLtd (MECL). Promotional work done by MECL is negligible. In the face of the hugeinvestment gap in prospecting and extraction, mainly due to the risky nature of miningventures, private sector involvement becomes a sine qua non for investment in the miningsector. Taking cognisance of this reality, the investment policy was liberalised in February2006 vide Press Note no. 4 (2006 Series), allowing 100 per cent FDI in the mining sector.1.13 Large mining companies, especially those in Australia, South America, and Europe,welcomed the decision of GOI to allow FDI in the mining sector. There is a consensus amonggeologists that Australia, India, South and Central Africa, and South America belong to thesame prehistoric land mass known as Gondwanaland and that these countries should havesimilar mineral resources in terms of quantity and grade. In fact, conventional wisdom in themining sector is that India is endowed with large mineral resources, especially of iron ore,bauxite, stones, base metals, noble metals, and diamonds. However, adequate survey andexploration activities have not been carried out in the country to discover the full potential ofthese deposits. While geological mapping on a scale of 1:50,000 has been largely completed(and some amount of multi-sensor aero-geophysical work was done with hired aircraft in1967–72, covering about 347,040 sq. km), not much geophysical and geochemical mappinghas been done, with the result that quantification of any significance is not possible. Even inrespect of iron ore and bauxite, where not much work is required to be done by way ofregional exploration due to the shallow nature of the ore bodies, there is much scope forfurther work. A number of iron ore belts are still unexplored and no formal resourceassessment has been attempted since the early 1980s. Most magnetite findings are entirelyincidental and since, unlike haematite iron ore, magnetite does not occur with specifiedgroups of rocks, even an estimate is not available. The formal position taken by GSI inrespect of bauxite is that the occurrence of this mineral is so plentiful that there is really nopoint in expending resources and time on its search. The work in respect of base metals andnoble metals is particularly dismal. Out of 1.82 million sq. km of hard rock area (excludingthe Deccan Trap), geophysical mapping of only 56,000 sq. km and geochemical mapping of10