The Economic and Finance Committee of the National Assembly recommended a substantial increase in penalties for offences relating to mines and minerals under the Mines and Minerals Bill of Bhutan 2020.
The law has become stringent for four sections in the Bill.
Under the chapter of offences and penalties, the House discussed four major mining offences and the increase in its penalties. Subsection 4 of section 175 of the Bill states that a person commits a major mining offence if the person carries out prospecting or exploration of minerals without prior approval in accordance with the Act. Previously, the provision in the Bill states that the person shall be liable to a fine equivalent to 40 days of the daily national minimum wage rate for this offence. However, the committee recommended increasing 40 days to 365 days. The House supported the committee’s recommendation.
Major offences like abandoning the mine or any portion of the mine lease area with potential risk to the health and safety of a person or the community and, altering or removing any mine boundary pillar without approval have a similar change in penalties. Before the Bill had a provision to fine a person equivalent to four months of daily national minimum wage rate which is now increased to 30 months with immediate suspension of a mining operation until rectified.
The major changes were also made in penalties for subletting a mining lease or permit offence. The previous provision which stated that a person shall be liable to a fine equivalent to 5 months of the daily national minimum wage rate and suspension of the activity for three months has now increased to a fine equivalent to 35 months.
The House supported changes in all four sections.
The House with these also discussed to allocate three per cent to Bhutan for Life fund and Bhutan Health Trust Fund from annual revenue of mining sector and also added responsibilities of the state to plough back up to 10 per cent of the royalty received from the lessee to the community near mining activities area.
Samten Dolkar
