National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

the Central Government to entertain applications from the aggrieved parties andtake a final decision thereon in the event of failure of the State Governments totake decision on mineral concession applications within the prescribed timeframes.5. We, most respectfully disagree with the above mentionedrecommendations. Our consistent view in this regard right from the beginningof the deliberations of the Committee has been that transfer of originaljurisdiction of the states to recommend / decide the mineral concessionapplications to the Central Government is not, and cannot be accepted as asolution to the problem of alleged delays in decision making. Our views,expressed during the deliberations of the formal and informal meetings in thisregard are summarised below: -5.1 The states being the owners of minerals, original jurisdiction in respect ofmaking recommendations / taking decisions on mineral concession applicationshas been and must continue to vest in the States. Transfer of original jurisdictionof the States in the cases in which some delays occur in decision making to theCentral Government is totally unacceptable.5.2 It is further seen from Chapter - II of the Draft Report that whereas thetime limits for deciding applications by the State Governments are proposed tobe either compressed or kept around the present level, there is norecommendation even for prescribing the time limits within which the CentralGovernment should decide the revision applications. Further, no statutorysolution(s) have been recommended for ensuring adherence to the time limitsfor deciding revision applications by the Central Government. The net result ofthe recommendation, thus, would be that the States will be deprived of theiroriginal jurisdiction after the periods specified in the proposed new Rule 54 A.This is unacceptable.5.3 The position obtaining in the States presently is that the time limitsprescribed for disposal of applications at times are/cannot be adhered to due tovariety of reasons beyond the control of the State Governments, such as nonsubmissionof requisite information / documents by the applicants, nonavailabilityof the data / field reports about the mineral bearing areas appliedfor, which are necessary for decision making. Delays take place not for thereason that State Governments do so deliberately, but for the reason that thetime limits prescribed are not adequate, particularly for processing the multipleapplication cases. However, discussion in Chapter - II gives only one sided viewas if the State Governments keep the applications pending deliberately and thesituation is so alarming that to remedy the situation a drastic / extra-ordinarystatutory solution namely, depriving the States of their powers, is required. Wedo not agree with this.262