A revision in India’s mining law is on the cards, with potential implications for vast tracts of land, forests, and the lives of communities living in mineral-rich regions. The draft Mines and Minerals (Amendment) Bill, 2026 proposes to remove area limits on the size of mining leases, allowing significantly larger areas to be brought under a single concession in a state. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act) has long been the backbone of mineral governance in the country. It sets out the framework for the exploration, allocation, and extraction of mineral resources, and structures the relationship between the state, mining companies, and communities living in mineral-bearing areas.
Section 6 of the Act specifies the maximum area in a state for which a prospecting licence or mining lease could be granted, with such ‘area limits’ for one or more prospecting licence capped at 25 square kilometres and for one or more mining leases capped at 10 square kilometres. This structure changed a little through one of the earlier amendments to the Act. The amendment empowered the Union government to increase the aforesaid area limit “in the interest of the development of any mineral or industry”, “for reasons to be recorded in writing”. In effect, the fixed statutory area limit began to co-exist with an executive discretion, justified on grounds of efficiency and economies of scale. The draft Bill of 2026 now seeks to remove area limits altogether, taking this gradual dilution of constraints to its logical conclusion.
The removal of area limits would affect leases for a wide range of major minerals such as iron ore, bauxite, chrome ore, copper, gold, manganese, lead and zinc. It would also extend to strategic and critical minerals such as lithium and rare earth elements, which have attracted growing policy attention. The government has justified this move by arguing that larger leases will increase participation in auctions, attract investment, enhance competitiveness, and enable economies of scale. However, the implications of removing area limits extend well beyond questions of efficiency or output.
These proposed changes come against the backdrop of ever persistent challenges in India’s mining sector, including environmental degradation, unresolved displacement, and gaps in enforcement of regulatory and social safeguards. Minerals are often framed as strategic national resources, particularly in the context of industrial growth and the global energy transition — a framing that is likely to gain further traction as demand for renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, and battery storage expands. However, for people living in mineral-rich regions, extraction has frequently translated into land alienation, disrupted livelihoods, ecological damage, and weak access to justice. Any amendment to the MMDR Act therefore has consequences that extend far beyond mineral production, shaping land use, environmental outcomes, and the distribution of power between institutions and local communities.
Why area limits matter
Area limits formed part of the MMDR Act framework from the very beginning. In mineral-rich regions (almost always overlapping with forests, Adivasi territories, agricultural land, and rural settlements), this restriction performed several important governance functions.
First, area limits act as a structural check on concentration by limiting the extent to which mineral resources could be controlled by a single entity. This matters not only for competition, but also for public accountability. When a single operator controls a large share of a mineral-bearing region, the state’s ability to regulate effectively can become more challenging, particularly if that operator is economically significant, politically influential, or administratively difficult to discipline.
