Madhya Pradesh Aims for Top Spot in Mineral Block Auctions: Mines Secy

Bhopal, Feb 25 (PTI) The Centre on Tuesday said it was optimistic that Madhya Pradesh will go for the auction of maximum number of mineral blocks in the current year.

Speaking during the Madhya Pradesh Global Investors Summit (GIS) 2025, Mines Secretary V L Kantha Rao said, "Two years back Madhya Pradesh was number one. Last year, Madhya Pradesh was number two and Rajasthan was number one. This year I think Madhya Pradesh might just scrape through to become number one."

"We were counting which state will go for the maximum number of auctions in the current year. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are neck-to-neck," he said.

The mines secretary hailed the state saying "one cannot find a more progressive state then Madhya Pradesh".

The Centre, he further said, is coming up with a policy where it will become commercially viable for all companies to extract critical minerals out of tailings, dump, and overburden.

Recycling is another area where there are a lot of opportunities, the secretary said, adding, "we are shortly going to come up with a scheme in which we will help you in recycling by offering financial support."

The mines ministry, the secretary said, is looking forward to improving the contribution of the mining sector to the state GDP and also improving the contribution of mining to national GDP that is around 2 per cent at present.