Bhubaneswar: Revenue from mining activities in the state have increased manifold in the last five years, if data presented in the Assembly Tuesday is any indication.
The state government, Tuesday, put forth the data on the collection of coal royalty by Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) and also the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds generated from the miners under the Union government’s scheme.
Data furnished by Steel and Mines Minister Prafulla Mallick before the House said that the state has seen a 49 per cent increase in coal royalty collection in the last five years since 2014-15. Similarly, the state witnessed 68 per cent rise in collection of DMF Funds during the last four years since 2015-16.
As per the written statement submitted by the state government before the House, the state saw collection of Rs 1420.95-crore coal royalty in 2014-15 which increased to Rs 1622.20 crore in 2015-16 and later in 2019-20 the numbers escalated to Rs 2110.54 crore.
Similarly, the state government had reported a total of Rs 395.44 crore DMF collections in 2015-16 while it went upto Rs 3079.01 crore in 2019-20, hinting towards a 68 per cent rise of DMF collections.
The sudden rise in DMF collections could be attributed to a surfeit in collections from Angul district which hosts India’s largest coalfield. Likewise, Keonjhar district, which has largest iron ore reserves, also saw a robust growth in DMF collections.
The state government has been pitching for revision in coal royalty before the Centre as per the provisions of legislations on mining. The revenues and other collections from coal mining in the state are also expected to rise with further planned coal block allocations and mining activities in the eight new proposed coal blocks in Angul district.