National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

• The Committee also recommends that consideration should be given to an alternativearrangement whereby allocations would be made to the Ministry of Mines to enable itto allocate funds directly to the MIDFICs for undertaking mining infrastructureprojects. In order to facilitate such as arrangement, the Ministry of Mines would haveto set up a small specialised body in the form of a corporate entity for appraisingprojects, routing funds, and providing the requisite expertise. [4.31]VALUE ADDITION• The guiding principle in respect of value addition should be that where amongmultiple applicants for LAPL/PL or ML there are applicants proposing to set up anindustry based on the mineral, preference may be given to such applicants, but wherenone of the applicants is willing to set up an industry their applications should beconsidered under Section 11(3) within the time limits laid down in Rule 63A of theMCR, and not kept pending or rejected in the hope that value-adders would make anapplication in future. Equally, applications of sole applicants should not be keptpending on the ground that the application does not envisage the setting up of anindustry based on the mineral. [5.12]• The Committee recommends that Section 11 of the MMDR Act be modified so as toprovide as follows in cases in which no notification has been made:(i) Applications for non-exclusive RP should be freely granted, with somewhatlight scrutiny of the applicant on the basis of the parameters (a) to (c) inexisting Section 11(3);(ii) Once non-exclusive RP has been granted, the progression to LAPL by the RPholder should be seamless (on the basis of first-in-time principle as mentionedin paragraph 1.41), provided the non-exclusive RP holder gives the data ofreconnaissance operations establishing mineral resources in the area; at thisstage, the scrutiny of the LAPL applicant against the parameters laid down inexisting parameters (a) to (c) should be more rigorous;(iii) For single applicants for direct PL or direct LAPL, only the parameters (a) to(c) in existing Section 11(3) should be applied. In deciding among multipleapplicants for direct PL or direct LAPL, preference may be given by the state211