India’s offshore mineral block auction likely to face speed-breaker

KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – The lack of a definitive legislative framework could slow the Indian government’s plans to auction at least 50 prospecting-cum-mining leases within the next three to four months.

According to a government official, onshore mining of minerals under the Mines, Minerals Development and Regulation Act (MMDRA) 2015 empowered the government to adopt the auction route for the allocation of mineral reserves. However, offshore mineral reserves, barring hydro-carbons, were governed by the Offshore Areas Development and Regulation Act (OADRA) 2002, which did not have the provision of adopting the auction route for composite licences, such as prospecting-cum-mining leases.

The official said that the Mines Ministry had two options. It could either seek opinion from the Law Ministry on whether MMDRA 2015 could be extended to auction off composite licences for offshore blocks, or it would have to amend the OADRA 2002 or promulgate new legislation through the Parliament.

Should the Mines Ministry opt for new legislation, the officials acknowledged that the government’s plans to put 50 offshore minerals blocks up for auction would be delayed as Parliamentary process would be protracted.

It was pointed out that the auction route was necessary for “effective and efficient” allocation of offshore mineral blocks to the “right and serious” investors, as in 2010, the government had allocated 62 such blocks through the preferential route but no headway had been made in either prospecting or developing these blocks.

Last year, the Geological Survey of India completed a survey of the exclusive economic zone and territorial waters of the country to assess offshore mineral resources.

Based on the survey the government was able to identify at least 62 viable mineral blocks along the coast of the provinces of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Mineral resources established included zirconium, titanium, thorium and tungsten, along with silica sand in territorial waters off the Kerala coast.