National Mineral Exploration Trust (Amendment) Rules, 2018

The Ministry of Mines has prepared the National Mineral Exploration Trust Amendment Rules, 2018 seeking to amend the National Mineral Exploration Trust Rules, 2015. States will now have to deposit the fund collected under the National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) to the Consolidated Fund of India instead of the trust’s own bank account. However, it will still be administered by the mines ministry as earlier. Created through a provision in the MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2015, the NMET Fund is provided to the states, on their demand, for carrying out exploration work in the natural resources bearing areas. NMET is levied at 2% of the royalty. States collect the money from the miners and deposit the sum with the bank account of the Trust.