Copy of Memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister through online “Developing and Transforming India” and the Reply from PMO

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: <cpgrams-darpg@nic.in>
Date: Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 11:39 AM
Subject: Online Registration
To: president@beachminerals.org

Dear Sir/Madam,

Your Communication has been registered vide Registration number PMOPG/E/2016/0205059 . Please logon to : http://pgportal.gov.in/ for any further details.Please quote the same in your future correspondance.

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Respected Sir,

Sub: Submission with a request to solve the problems faced by Beach Sand Minerals producers caused by the recent amendments to the MMRD Act Amendment 2015.

Beach Sand Minerals (BSM) are a group of minerals normally occur as placer deposits. The major mineral is ilmenite which is iron titanium oxide. The associated minerals are normally garnet, sillimanite, zircon, rutile, leucoxene and monazite less than 1%.

The National Mineral Policy recognized the need for encouraging private investment including foreign direct investment and for attracting state of arc technology in the mineral sector.

The reserve estimates indicate that Indian deposits contain around 593 million tonnes of ilmenite which is 35 % of the world ilmenite reserves which was exclusively with the government sector until 1998. Policy on Beach Mineral was notified in 1998 and wholly Indian owned companies are permitted to enter in this field. Hence our export growth goes from 0.1% to 4%  of world production. There is abundant scope for improvement in share of production to the level of the share of reserves.

Now Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, Leucoxene and Monazite all are Part ‘B’ of the 1^st  Schedule as Atomic Minerals.  Since these Ilmenite, Rutile, Leucoxene, Zircon etc., are not used for production of Atomic Energy or research thereof, the High level committee of Planning Commission request to de-list the above minerals from list of Atomic Minerals.

Accordingly DAE delisted it with effect from 1.1.2007. But in the MMDR Act, the above said minerals are not de-listed from Atomic Minerals even after these were delisted by DAE.

If Govt., of India want to harvest the fullest fruit in terms of the MMDR Amended Act, 2015 by encouraging private entrepreneur and foreign direct investment etc., it is just and necessary to change Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, Leucoxene from the Part-‘B’ of first schedule of MMDR Act to second schedule of MMDR Act, so that additional employment generation of one to five lakh people will be created, in addition to, foreign exchange earnings of Rs.10,000 Crores per year.

The mining leases should be permitted to recover all the associated minerals.

It is more important to allow to produce rare earth oxides by wholly Indian owned companies considering the outflow of foreign exchange in importing these products and also the strategic importance of increasing the production of rare earths, thorium and uranium to reduce the dependence of the country on other nations and make “the production and processing of the mineral monazite, a make in India program”.

We therefore request the Honorable Prime Minister to intervene in this matter and to convene a joint meeting of the central government departments and state governments of BSM along with our association representatives to discuss and take action to make suitable amendments in the first schedule by changing the above minerals to the second Schedule of MMDR Act and also for sorting out all the above mentioned difficulties.

-Beach Mineral Producers Association-