CHENNAI: The Ministry of Mines on Tuesday requested the Tamil Nadu government to keep the process of issuing the Letter of Intent (LoI) to the preferred bidder, Hindustan Zinc Limited, for mining of tungsten in Nayakkarpatti Tungsten Block in Madurai on hold.
It has cited objections relating to auctioning of the block over the existence of biodiversity heritage site within block area.
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has been asked to explore the possibility of redefining the block boundary by excluding the biodiversity site, a press statement issued by the ministry on Tuesday said.
TNIE was the first to report about the plan to mine molybdenum and tungsten in Tamil Nadu.
The ministry’s announcement has come two weeks after Tamil Nadu Assembly on December 9 unanimously adopted a resolution urging the centre to immediately cancel the tungsten mining rights given to Hindustan Zinc Limited and not to grant any mining licence in the future without the permission of the state government.
Speaking in the Assembly, Chief Minister MK Stalin had declared that as long as he is the CM, the state government will never allow tungsten mining in Madurai district. The chief minister had also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cancel the award of tungsten mining rights.
The mines ministry had earlier said that inputs were taken from the Tamil Nadu government before the auction of the tungsten block and no communication from any quarter, including from the state, regarding any opposition to the tender was received.
The statement by the mines ministry on Tuesday also said that secretary of the ministry, in a letter dated December 6, 2023, sent to Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu requested details of three critical mineral blocks to be put up for auction including Nayakkarpatti.
State can clear mining licence: Ministry
Subsequently, the Commissioner of Geology and Mining of Tamil Nadu on February 8, 2024, shared information about these three blocks including Nayakkarpatti block. “Although the state government informed about the existence of biodiversity site covering an area of 193.215 hectares (about 10% of the total area of the block), but did not recommend against conduct of auction of the block,” the statement said.
The statement, however, pointed out that before a mining lease is granted for the mineralized zone, the composite licence holder must obtain several clearances from agencies including the state government and the ministry of environment and forest. “The state government always held this right (of sanctioning clearance) which is usually exercised after exploration stage,” the release said.
It is noteworthy that a composite licence refers to prospecting licence-cum-mining lease — a two-stage concession granted under Mineral (Auction) Rules. This licence mandates that prospecting (exploration) operations be taken up first. Prospecting starts with a larger area based on preliminary evidences gained from reconnaissance geological survey and ends with establishing mineral content in a relatively smaller defined mineralised zone which is later taken up for mining, the release said.
The Ministry of Mines said that it has successfully conducted auction of 24 blocks of critical and strategic minerals in four tranches till date. The Nayakkarpatti Tungsten Block covering an area of over 20.16 sq. km was proposed for the auction as Composite Licence (CL) in February 2024 and was notified again for auction as second attempt in June 2024. “It was successfully auctioned with Hindustan Zinc Ltd. being declared as the preferred bidder on November 7, 2024,” the statement said.