National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

on providing the types of information that could assist the private sector in its search fordeposits (for example, provision of regional geological, geophysical, and geochemical dataand maps). Government support for delineating individual deposits through detailedexploration is by and large a thing of the past, as geological surveys have shifted financialallocations to acquire new technologies that allow them to use and interpret regionalinformation better, complete mapping at scales useful to the private sector, and build webbasedinformation dissemination systems. Furthermore, only a few governments aspire tomine minerals now, as the private sector has become highly efficient, technologicallyadvanced, and competitive. In this highly competitive environment, not many State-runexploration and mining entities have survived.National Mineral Policy1.24 The NMP (1993) is ambiguous about the relative roles of the State and the privatesector. India officially relies primarily on the public sector to explore for minerals. Whilegeological information collection is the domain of the GSI, the fact is that, as mentionedearlier, GSI has been spending a large part of its scarce resources on coal while a vast amountof work still remains to be done in the area of regional exploration for the other majorminerals. Given the technology and resource limitations of GSI, it is necessary for the policyto envisage private sector initiative to be the main driver of investment in exploration even asthe GSI is strengthened to access the latest technologies such as deep imaging andelectromagnetic probing. This should be the case not only in detailed exploration but also inregional exploration where substantial private investment is needed to supplement the workof GSI in the areas of geophysical and geochemical mapping, which are the main componentsof reconnaissance or regional exploration. This implies that as a rule, the policy shouldencourage access of the mining industry to global markets rather than restricting them toproducing minerals only for the domestic market, and simultaneously, the policy shouldenable the end-user industry to access global resources rather than depending only on localresources for their raw material.1.25 Given the changing global environment, governments have sought to understandbetter the needs of the private sector. Investors have many nations to choose from whendeciding where to explore or to mine. Nations with geological potential, reasonable tax terms,acceptable legislation assuring fair play, and political stability have brighter prospects for thelong-term development of their mineral sector than those in which one or more of these are15