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Govt likely to amend laws to let firms explore critical minerals overseas

India is planning to amend the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act 2023 to specify the use of funds currently earmarked at ₹5,600 crore for exploring critical mineral mines overseas, according to a top official. The proposed amendments also aim to introduce a tailings policy and modify the royalty structure to facilitate the extraction of critical minerals from waste materials, the official added. These changes are expected to advance the National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM), which focuses on securing supplies of these strategically important minerals for commercial use. The NCMM has an allocated budget of ₹16,300 crore over seven years, from FY 2024–25 to FY 2030–31, with an additional ₹18,000 crore expected to be invested by Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs). The NCMM also includes initiatives to promote the recovery of critical minerals from tailings through various technologies. 'Critical minerals require certain amendments in the act. We will make some amendments in the monsoon session,' the official quoted above said. The MMDR Act, 1957, has been amended in 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021 and 2023. On 2 August, Parliament passed the MMDR Act, 2023 to attract private sector investment in the exploration of critical and deep-seated minerals in the country. 'If you are mining manganese, you can extract cobalt out of the dump. If you are mining bauxite from red mud, you can extract gallium. Basically, we want to incentivise people to extract all these critical minerals that are associated with bulk minerals. For that, we will have to bring a royalty structure which is attractive,' the official stated. Queries sent to the secretary and spokesperson for the mines ministry remained unanswered at press time. Currently, the act says that whatever royalty you give to manganese should be the same for cobalt. 'People say that they have to invest so much money in processing that they can't give so much royalty. So, we said that we will reduce the royalty,' the official added. Secondly, the mines ministry intends to spend National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) money on mineral exploration abroad, which is currently meant for mineral exploration activities within the country. 'So, we have to amend the NMET provision in the act to say that, for example, we got land in Zambia, and we are sending GSI (Geological Survey of India) and MECL (Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Limited) to go and explore. But they don't have money. They are a regular government department. So, we will try to support them through NMET for exploration,' the official said, indicating that there are three or four such amendments in the process. Stockpiling is one of the provisions in the mission, and the ministry is working on some guidelines for it. 'It has to be demand driven. If you stockpile everything, people won't buy. Then you will end up making losses,' the official said. Stockpiling means lending the mineral and dumping it in ore form or raw form. Tailings policy is an overarching policy. In tailings, one is to look for critical minerals. We are now going around, looking for critical minerals in the dumps. 'The amendment will be meant to encourage mine owners to look at their dumps and tailings through various technologies,' the official said.