The Ministry of Mines regularly declares and updates royalty rates for major minerals in India under the Second Schedule to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) MMDR Act, 1957. These rates are applied either as an ad valorem percentage or a fixed tonnage amount.
Recent Royalty Declarations
- Critical Minerals (24 Minerals): The government completed the rationalization of royalties for all 24 critical and strategic minerals to facilitate their mining and auction.
- Graphite, Caesium, Rubidium, and Zirconium: Royalty is structured on an ad valorem basis to better reflect changing market prices.
- Lithium, Niobium, and Rare Earth Elements (REEs): Royalty rates were specifically set to empower the auction of these strategic elements for the first time.
- Other Major Minerals: For standard metallic minerals, royalties are often tied to global pricing benchmarks, such as the percentage of the London Metal Exchange (LME) price for ores containing Copper, Lead, and Zinc.