Rajya Sabha passes mines and minerals amendment Bill

New Delhi: The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2023 that encourages the private sector in the exploration of mineral, including lithium.

The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on 28 July. With the clearance by the upper house, the legislative exercise in Parliament is complete and the Bill will become a law after the President’s consent.

One of the major reforms proposed in the Bill is to introduce exploration licences for deep-seated and critical minerals. Deep-seated minerals, such as gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, nickel, cobalt, and platinum group of minerals, diamonds are difficult and expensive to explore.

The proposed exploration licence would facilitate, encourage and incentivize private sector participation in all spheres of mineral exploration for critical and deep-seated minerals.

The Bill also has provisions to remove six minerals from the list of 12 atomic mineral list. These minerals have various applications in the space industry, electronics, communications, energy sector, and electric batteries and are critical in the net-zero emission commitment of India.

Due to their inclusion in the list of atomic minerals, their mining and exploration are reserved for government entities. Upon removal of these minerals from the list, exploration and mining of these minerals will be opened up for the private sector as well.

The Bill also empowers the Central government to exclusively auction mining leases and composite licences for certain critical minerals.