Synopsis
Karnataka targets to fetch Rs 3,000 crore from a delicate mining tax in 2026-27. The remark authorities amended its mineral rights legislation to introduce this levy. On the other hand, the legislation requires central authorities approval. Union Steel Minister HD Kumaraswamy opposes the tax, citing skill impression on the metal sector. The Supreme Court docket ruling enables states to tax mineral-bearing land and rights.
ANIBengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has pencilled in Rs 3,000 crore in revenues from a proposed mining levy for 2026-27, however the realizing stays stalled as the legislation awaits approval from the Centre amid opposition from Union Steel Minister HD Kumaraswamy.
The remark authorities amended its mineral rights legislation in December 2024 to introduce a tax on mineral rights and mineral-bearing land. Nevertheless the bill has been pending with the Union authorities for over a year.
“The Enlighten Authorities will proceed to have interaction with the Authorities of India for an early risk in this regard,” Siddaramaiah said in his price range speech on Friday, whereas including ₹3,000 crore from the levy in projected revenues for the next fiscal.
The proposed tax has faced solid resistance from Kumaraswamy, whose ministry oversees the metal sector. Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot returned the Karnataka (Mineral Rights and Mineral Bearing Land) Tax Bill, 2024, in January closing year, to the authorities with out assenting it, amid the controversy.
Kumaraswamy had publicly criticised the depart, arguing that additional taxation could undermine High Minister Narendra Modi’s imaginative and prescient for rising the metal sector. He also talked about concerns raised by mining corporations with Union Regulation Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal after industry gamers protested the levy.
The proposed tax follows a landmark Supreme Court docket ruling on August 14, 2024, which allowed states to impose taxes on mineral-bearing land and mineral rights with retrospective attain from April 1, 2005. The court, then yet again, waived interest and penalties on dues sooner than July 25, 2024, and allowed mining leaseholders to pay arrears in instalments over 12 years starting April 1, 2026.
The judgment clarified that Parliament’s Mines and Minerals (Pattern and Regulation) Act, 1957 would now not restrict states’ powers to tax mineral rights. It also held that the associated price of minerals or mineral output could inspire as the premise for such taxation.
Karnataka estimates that the gentle levy could generate about Rs 4,208 crore yearly from taxes on mineral rights and yet every other Rs 506 crore from homeowners of mineral-bearing land.
Below the proposed structure, the remark plans to impose a tax of Rs 100 per tonne on bauxite, laterite ore, chromite, iron ore, magnesite and mineral concentrates; Rs 50 per tonne on copper ore and gold (each critical and by-product); Rs 25 per tonne on limestone; Rs 20 per tonne on lime shell; and Rs 40 per tonne on varied unspecified critical minerals.
The draft legislation was cleared by the remark cupboard chaired by Siddaramaiah in December 2024, following the Supreme Court docket’s 8–1 ruling on July 25, 2024, that overturned a 1989 judgment which had held that only the Centre could impose royalty on minerals and mineral-bearing land.
