Online reporting system of mineral transaction

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Sanjeev Kumar Sundriyal | 17 Jul, 2012
In its continues effort to bring more transparency the Mines Ministry has developed an On-Line Registration and Reporting System under rule 45 of MCDR, 1988 of mineral transaction to facilitate the submission of monthly returns of iron ore.

The Minister of State Independent Charge Shri Dinsha J. Patel launched the first phase of the Online Reporting System of mineral transaction.

The focus will be on submission of monthly returns for iron and manganese ore mines throughout the country. Other minerals would be covered by September 2012. In the present system of mineral administration, the onus of the mineral is with the State Governments. The Ministry has a limited authority except the administration of Mineral Conservation and Development Rules, 1988 (MCDR) through Indian Bureau of Mines. Now the reporting system has been developed to facilitate in submitting the returns on-line. Indian Bureau of Mines will allot and record registration numbers, which will be used for all reporting and correspondence connected to mining, trading, stocking, end use or export of mineral. All the State Government will be able to access the system to check the data reported in the returns and can initiate action in case of wrong reporting of data, evasion of royalty, etc.

Over a period of time, it has come to the knowledge of the Ministry that malpractices in mining sector have increased due to poor governance at State level leading to number of illegal mining cases. The mineral thus produced, come into the mineral market through trading, stocking, procurement by end-users or export. This situation has necessitated the Government to take stringent measures for monitoring the mining and mineral transaction in order to control malpractices in this sector.

In future the system will be linked to Railways and Ports Authorities to check the correctness of the reporting made under the Rule.

The on-line reporting system is linked to on-line registration system. Broadly the reporting system is divided into two parts. Part-I covers the general information in addition to the employment details. Part-II of the monthly reporting system deals with the grade wise production, dispatches, stock and justification for increase/decrease of production and sale price of minerals. The Part-II of reporting system requires the registration number of the consignee and purpose of sale whether for domestic consumption or export and in case of domestic consumption whether it is made for captive consumption or sale or transfer.

The on-line registration system has already commenced in Indian Bureau of Mines and so far 4898 lease holders (covering 9390 mines), 2345 traders, 476 exporters, 1033 stockist and 1653 end-users have registered their details. Further, Indian Bureau of Mines has suspended operations in 1560 mines for non-compliance as per provisions of Rule 45 of MCDR, 1988. Out of which it has recommended 21 mines to State Government for termination of lease.

The amended Rule 45 of MCDR, 1988 specifies penal action against defaulting mine owners and empowers the Government to order for suspension of all mining operations and may revoke the order of suspension after ensuring proper compliance, take action to initiate prosecution and recommend for termination of mining lease. The Rule further specified that in case of defaulters engaged in trading or storage or end use or export of minerals, the State Government is empowered to order for suspension of trading license, all transport permits issued, storage license for stocking minerals and permits of end use industry, etc. The reporting system is designed to generate violation letters automatically and issue the same to the defaulters who fail to submit the returns by the stipulated date of 10th of every month. In order to ensure tighter implementation, State Governments would be partnered for compliance of traders, stockiest, exporters and end-users. (PIB Features.)

* The author is the Media & Communication Officer, PIB, New Delhi.
* The views expressed by the author in this article are his/ her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of SME Times.