Pursuant to the 2016 Amendment, the Central Government has notified the Minerals (Transfer of Mining Lease Granted Otherwise than through Auction for Captive Purpose) Rules, 2016 (‘ML Transfer Rules’) on May 30, 2016, which set out the procedure for transfer of mining leases granted otherwise than through auction and for captive purpose (‘ML’). The salient features of ML Transfer Rules are as below:

i. Deemed approval for transfer of ML, if the State Government does not reject the application within 90 days from the application;

ii. Transferee to make an upfront lumpsum payment of 0.5% of the value of estimated resources of the ML upon receipt of approval and execute the mine development and production agreement with the State Government;

iii. Transferee to provide performance security to the State Government for an amount equivalent to 0.5% of the value of estimated resources, to be adjusted every five years to correspond to 0.5% of the reassessed value of estimated resources;

iv. Transferor and transferee to jointly submit a duly registered transfer deed for ML to the State Government within the specified period; and

v. State Government to execute a mining lease deed with the transferee upon registration of the deed of transfer of ML.

The ML Transfer Rules also stipulate that whenever royalty is payable in terms of the second schedule to the MMDR Act, the transferee is to pay to the State Government an amount equal to 80% of the royalty, in addition to the royalty payable, simultaneously with payments of royalty, which will be adjusted against the upfront payment mentioned under (ii) above.