Nagaland’s huge minor mineral resources are yet to be fully explored and assessed for commercial use, the state’s geology and mining department said in its annual administrative report for the year 2017-18.
The report says the overall minor resources such as sand, stone, gravels, boulders, sandstones, limestone, marble, granite, clay, building and dimensions stones etc and slates in the State assessed to be about 317 million metric tonnes.
Ready for a challenge? Click here to take our quiz and show off your knowledge!
Owing to poor structure mechanism for governance to regulate small scale mining in the state, the state government framed Nagaland Minor Mineral Concession Rules 2004 under Section 17 of the Nagaland (Ownership Transfer of Land & its Resources) Act 1990, outlining the mechanism for granting of lease for various minor minerals and issues related to it.
But, the regulatory framework guiding of mineral could not be operationalized due to systematic malfunctioning of governance mechanism, the report stated.
“As a result of which, the State is facing serious irregularities which includes confusing regulatory provisions, inadequate monitoring and enforcement, which in turn is causing huge revenue loss to the state exchequer,” the report stated.
Ready for a challenge? Click here to take our quiz and show off your knowledge!
It also said the State Government after realizing the adverse impact of rampant and illegal sand and boulder mining in Chathe and Dhansiri rivers of Dimapur district decided to operationalize the Nagaland Minor Mineral Concession 2004 in 2017.
Accordingly, the geology and mining department was authorized to issue license and permits and levy taxes and royalty on minor minerals.
Despite this, the environment, forest and climate change department was also collecting royalty from minor minerals in the State.
The public as well as sand and boulder unions raised issue not to levy double taxations on the same mineral by two departments, the report said.
Following the objection, a joint meeting of geology and mining and forest departments under the chairmanship of the then Chief Minister T R. Zeliang on October 28, 2017 authorized the geology and mining department to implement the Nagaland Minor Mineral Concession Rules 2004.
Accordingly, the department started implementing the said rules by issuing quarry permits/licenses and levy royalty on minor minerals from November 2017. The department so far has issued seven stone quarry permits and 15 bricks quarry permits to individuals and parties.
The report said the minor minerals were handed over to geology and mining department in the last part of the fiscal 2017. However, the department did not have any fund to implement the rules.
The department set up five mineral check gates in Dimapur for collection of royalty despite fund constraints.
If proper infrastructure such as construction of offices, setting up of mineral check gates in district levels are created along with sufficient manpower then the department can generate revenue to the tune of Rs five crore to Rs 10 crore per year from minor mineral sector, the report added.