Around 44% of IUP mining permits remain problematic

As many as 4,672 IUP mining permits, or about 44 percent of the total 10,648 IUP permits issued, remain to have non-clean and clear (C&C) status, Kontan reported Saturday.

The paper quoted Director General of Mineral and Coal R. Sukhyar as saying that the ministry earlier in December discussed the issue with 12 provincial administrations. ?The result is that the IUP permits of 544 miners have been revoked, and 6,672 remain in non-C&C status,? he said this week.

The ministry has been struggling to resolve the problematic IUP mining permits among others due to overlapping of permits issued by the local governments. Sukhyar said that the government was hoping that there would be no more mining firms with non-C&C status in 2015. (*)