India is poised to emerge as a global leader in offshore mining, a government official announced on Tuesday. Speaking at the Critical Minerals Summit, Veena Kumari D, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Mines, highlighted that India has amended its offshore mining legislation to facilitate this endeavor.
"We have amended the Act for offshore mining and are currently working on the rules for it. India will lead in offshore mining, given that few countries have ventured into this domain. We have been actively pursuing this since August 2023," she stated.
The Mines Secretary, V L Kantha Rao, mentioned on Monday that the auction of offshore mines is set to commence within three months. The amendment to the Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002, now enables the auctioning of production leases for offshore minerals.
"Currently, we are making rules. We are making seven types of rules under that Act to ensure that we can auction offshore mineral blocks. We have got 15 blocks explored by GSI (Geological Survey of India)... we have to do inter-ministerial consultations," the government had earlier said.
Offshore mining involves extracting mineral deposits from the deep seabed, typically exceeding depths of 200 meters. The process entails sorting poly-metallic nodules, comprising metals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, titanium, and rare earth elements, while unwanted sediments are returned to the sea.
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