PANJIM: The State government is in process of identifying iron ore mining leases so as to grant them extensions as per the new Mines and Minerals Development Regulation (MMDR) Act 2015. The process is expected to be completed in six months. The government informed this to the Union Mines Ministry’s Coordination-cum-Empowered Committee (CEC) on mineral development and regulation at its recent meeting. The CEC had sought to know the status of extension of existing leases to be done by States for the implementing sub-section 5 and 6 of Section 8(a) of the MMDR Act. The new law has done away with the provision of renewal of mining leases and instead, all leases awaiting renewal were automatically allowed to operate till 2020 in case of merchant mines and up to 2030 for captive mines, as per Section 8(A)5 and 8(A)6. “Even after completion of eight months of promulgation of MMDR Amendment Ordinance, 2015, the State government has not been able to extend the existing mining leases. State should finish the process of extension of the leases at the earliest,” Union Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar said. Post suspension of mining operations, the State has granted second renewal to 88 iron ore mining leases for a period of 20 years, from the date of expiry of its lease in 2007. The State has also till date not submitted the list of those mines, whose environmental clearance (EC) from Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and Forest clearance (FC) is pending and hence mining operations cannot be executed.