A ministerial panel on mine on Thursday unanimously approved the draft Mines and
Mineral Development and Regulation (MMDR) Bill , 2011, which provides for 26 per cent profit sharing by
coal miners and 100 per cent royalty sharing for others with project-affected people.
"The Bill has been unanimously passed. It will now go to the Cabinet within the next 15 days. We will try to table the Bill in the forthcoming monsoon season of Parliament," Mines Minister Dinsha Patel told reporters emerging from the one-and-a-half-hour long meeting of the Group of Ministers.
He, however, declined to give details of the provisions in the Bill. "Once the proceedings are over, I will give you details," Patel said.
Sources, meanwhile, said the Bill proposes 26 per cent profit sharing by coal companies with the project affected people; while rest of the miners would share 100 per cent royalty.
The total burden on miners by shelling out profit and royalty would be around Rs 11,000 crore, a minister, who attended the meeting, said.
The Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, was constituted to iron out differences among various ministries over 26 per cent profit-sharing formula in the proposed new legislation. The provision created a lot of furore among the industry with major players, including mining body FIMI, opposing it.
Patel has recently written to Mukherjee expressing concerns of the industry and urged him to look into the issue.
"...I feel that we can have an arrangement of industry sharing an amount equal to 26 per cent of royalty paid in previous year" instead of profit sharing formula, Patel had written.
The profit calculation is difficult and accounts can be fudged to hide the actual profit, the letter stated, adding it shall be very difficult to calculate profit in captive mines of big industry where final product is steel etc.
He also proposed retaining the present system of having the Centre's prior approval for grant of mineral concessions by states in case of ten major minerals, including iron ore and bauxite, in the new mines legislation.
Besides Mukherjee and Patel, the 10-member GoM included Law Minister V Moily, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, among others.
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