Gati Shakti to help speedup auction of critical minerals

Source: The post is based on the article “Gati Shakti to help speedup auction of critical minerals”  published in Livemint on 16th September 2023

What is the News?

PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan is helping in expediting the auction of critical minerals.

What is PM Gati Shakti?

PM Gati Shakti seeks to bring all relevant ministries and departments of the central government together, and create a digital platform for comprehensive and integrated project planning. 

This includes dynamic mapping of all infrastructure projects with real-time updates. 

The data from all individual ministries will be integrated into a single platform, facilitating planning, review, and monitoring.

How is PM Gati Shakti helping in expediting the auction of critical minerals?

The central government has authorized states to use their own records and the online resources of PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan for defining mining areas. 

The revised land demarcation and classification rules have helped identify well-defined mining zones and streamline the auction process.

For instance, amendments made in September 2023 to the Mineral (Auction) Rules, 2015, allow state governments to use land details available on the PM Gati Shakti-National Master Plan for Multi-modal Connectivity platform or state government land record portals for land classification.

This change is expected to expedite the land demarcation and classification making it faster to prepare blocks for auctions.

Previously, the 2015 mineral auction regulations required offline identification and demarcation of mineral blocks using technology like total station and differential global positioning system (DGPS), which caused delays.Hence, this new approach using online records is expected to simplify and expedite the process.