After commercial auction success, govt plans further mining reforms

Private sector likely to get entry into mineral exploration

After running commercial coal mining auctions, the Union government is now going to come up with a comprehensive package of reforms in the non-coal mining sector.

This would include offering mines for merchant sales and not linking them to production for captive use.

It would also allow existing captive miners to sell surplus minerals in the open market. Besides, the private sector would be allowed to access money from the National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) to do preliminary exploration.

The trust receives around Rs 800 crore annually from royalty but the money can be accessed only by public sector undertakings (PSUs).

A senior government