Minerals are the basic building blocks of most physical things in our societies. Unfortunately not enough awareness has been created to their importance to our economy, our well being, our material possessions and society in general.
Such is the state of societal non communication that any discussion with the common man about minerals starts with ecological concerns, weaves around illegal mining and rarely progresses beyond a vague sense of something happening in a far away wonderland that has nothing to do with the day to day life. This is so far removed from the facts that on just wonders…
And ponders over the failures of the stakeholders to establish appropriate communication and making their presence felt. No wonder society at large has no opinion about the critical issues of the mineral industry.
Indian Mineral Policy as it evolves
Business of Exploration: The way forward for India
Dr Amit Tripathi, Director, MPXG Exploration
Any business needs access to raw material, a value addition process, financing and a right to sell their product. For a mineral exploration business, the unproven tenement is the raw material, the exploration works financed through equity financing and the value added or feasibility proven mining rights are the finished product. Current Indian policies make the raw material (concessions) prohibitively expensive; put restrictions on several technological and financial innovations; and prohibit the sale of the finished product. As a result the exploration business is a non-starter in India. As exploration is the foundation of the mineral value chain, the entire industry is stalling and getting progressively more and more import dependent. This trend can be reversed by reforming the policies for mineral exploration business. Some of the important reforms would include:
- Ease of obtaining licenses, faster and cheaper than other competing jurisdictions
- Reforming of adversarial levys and windfall taxation
- Level playing field for technocrats to succeed as entrepreneurs, not just large business houses
- Access to venture capital
- Tax flow through
Rare Earths: Policy perspective and a way forward for India
Dr Amit Tripathi, Director, MPXG Exploration
Rare earth elements are critical for industrial progress. By preventing private sector from mining an processing of REE, India has closed its doors on a futuristic industrialization of electronics manufacturing and development of cutting edge technology and electric vehicle revolution. This has give China a walkover in this sector. By opening up REE to Indian private industry India can still catch up after the Covid disruption. Delay in policy making will cause India to miss the boat again and Indian industry will be dependent of Chinese supplies in perpetuity.
Prosperity or Disaster? Mineral Policy in India. A discussion on evolving mining jurisdiction
Biplob Chatterjee, Director, Geovale Exploration on his take on unintended consequences with Dr Amit Tripathi
Dreams of a mining boom: Artificial scarcity, unintended consequences, baby steps in evolving mining policy in India
Prosperity or Disaster? Mineral Policy in India. A discussion on evolving mining jurisdiction
Dr. V.N.Vasudev, CEO MPXG Exploration discusses evolving mining policy of India with Dr. Amit Tripathi
Threadbare discussion on Indian Mineral Policy. How it evolved in last 25 years. What has been the pros and cons of the Mining Policy as it changed? Is the current poilcy achieving its stated objectives? How are international best practices permeating to Indian Policy? Are our policy makers hesitant in permitting innovation or is ignorance a component? Where would the indusrty like the policy to head? What explonential growth in resource independence, rural jobs, forex savings, is the industry capable of achieving in a short duration only if the policy allows them? All these and more…
Mining Industry Regulations in India: What are mining law implementation achieving? Where are we headed? Is it just incompetence?
Sandeep Lakhwara, CEO, Deccan Gold, India in a candid conversation with Dr. Amit Tripathi
Poor implementation of good laws can have the exact opposite affect on the stated policy objectives. Sandeep Lakhwara narrates his struggles to navigate the jurisdictional and permitting maze of Indian bureaucracy and how this astronomic delay has caused collosal loss not just to Deccan Gold shareholders, but caused massive notional losses to the exchequer, dissipated job opportunities in rural areas, and massive setback to reputation of India
Attracting investors to exploration: what changes in jurisdiction would work?
Gregory Beischer, CEO Millrock Resources, Canada in conversation with Dr. Amit Tripathi – May 2020
What are the policy tools that a government can use to persuade a world class explorer to move out of their comfort zone and invest in exploring new jurisdictions. How much of a factor are entry barriers?
Mineral Exploration Academy 