SAROOR
JAMMU: Ensuring the supply of Lithium at the global platform after its extraction, the auction of metal is expected later this year with many top industrialists in the race.
According to administrative sources, the Government of India is planning to fix royalty on lithium mining at the rate of three per cent, adding, “mining companies will have to pay three per cent of the prices prevailing on the London Metal Exchange (LME) to extract lithium.”
“The government is expected to auction lithium blocks with estimated reserves of 5.9 million tonnes later this year,” sources revealed.
The deposits of Lithium, which is an important metal for manufacturing batteries of electric vehicles, was found in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir in February this year.
“Nearly a dozen Indian and foreign companies including top names are likely to participate in the auction,” adding that they said, “it is learnt that India has fixed royalty rates for bauxite mining on the basis of LME in the past as well.”
Royalty for lithium auction will be paid to the Jammu and Kashmir administration, sources asserted.
“Receiving royalty from lithium mining by the Jammu and Kashmir will be a major step towards auctioning the country’s first lithium block,” they said and added that the royalty rates will be fixed by the Union Ministry of Mines but the revenue generated will go to the exchequer of the local administration.
“The Jammu and Kashmir administration has completed the consultation process with stakeholders on the amendment of the offshore Mining Act and it will soon be brought to the Parliament for discussion,” they said.
Sources revealed that the auction of lithium reserves is expected to begin by later this year, probably in December.
Lithium—the non-ferrous metal, is one of the key components in EV batteries, among other industries.
